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]]>theTrumpet.comTue, 03 Mar 2015 17:27:01 +0100http://www.thetrumpet.com/trumpet_daily/1627/the-iranian-threat-imagine-isis-with-nukesWhat Happens When You Take the UK out of the EU?http://tracking.feedpress.it/link/4298/602923
If the European Union wants to make British people angry, it’s doing a stellar job. In October, after revising how they calculate gross domestic product, EU officials determined that Britain was wealthier than they thought. They abruptly handed Britain an unexpected bill for $2.7 billion, including back payment, for the EU budget. Then other EU leaders publicly castigated London for noncompliance with the EU’s liberal immigration policies. And in November, Jean-Claude Juncker—a man who openly spurns democratic norms, saying, for example, in 2011, “I am for secret, dark debates”—was appointed president of the European Commission.

Britain’s simmering resentment of the EU boiled over.

Ever since Britain joined up with Europe in 1973, it has experienced rhetorical fights, political impasses and financial catastrophes. Rather than cohering and melding into Europe, its closeness with the Continent has only caused friction. Yet it has remained steadfastly part of the EU.

But signs are increasing that this relationship is at an impasse. These days, major problems with Europe seem to come every few months, each sparking a reaction more impassioned than the last. And in 2014, the British electorate sent a strong message that it is ready to end the status quo.

In late May, for the first time since 1910, neither the Labor Party nor the Conservative Party won in a nationwide election. The UK Independence Party (ukip) won 26.8 percent of the vote in the European elections, followed by Labor and the Conservatives, which each won around 25 percent.

But ukip always does relatively well in EU elections. Thus, many people dismissed this as a flash in the pan—the apex of ukip’s dramatic rise, which would see it coast back to obscurity in time for the national elections in 2015.

That notion was dispelled in the autumn. On October 9, for the first time ever, a ukip member won an election for a seat in Britain’s Parliament. Then on November 20, a second was voted in. “An Earthquake Called UKIP Hits Britain,” read the title of the Wall Street Journal’s coverage. In both cases, these were high-profile politicians who had defected from the Conservative Party. Their victories put ukip on the national map. ukip also came close to winning seats previously held by Labor Party candidates. Many pundits predict that it will pick up several seats in the next election.

Britain is undergoing a huge political shift.

The shift is so dramatic that U.S. think tank Stratfor—an organization that rarely focuses on internal national politics—noted that ukip leader Nigel Farage’s “rapid rise in British politics has moved the entire British political spectrum toward more euroskeptical positions, and no major party is impervious to ukip’s influence. … Britain’s traditional party system dominated by the Tories [Conservatives] and Labor will undergo a tough test in 2015″ (Oct. 15, 2014).

As 2015 dawns on Britain’s relationship with the EU, one thing is clearer than ever. Britain has gone as far toward EU integration as it’s ever going to get. And the gap between the Isles and the Continent is widening fast.

Why is the UK always the fractious member, always wanting to do its own thing? Other EU member countries have issues with Brussels—but none is so keen on leaving as Britain.

What we are seeing is really a manifestation of a fundamental and historical difference between people of Britain and those on the European mainland. Understanding this difference can illuminate just how irreconcilable the differences that are visible between the two really are. And beyond that, it can help to show the direction we can expect Europe to take once—as we expect will happen—the UK is no longer in the picture.

The essential nature of this difference can be best understood by viewing today’s European unification project in its historical context.

The Dream of Rome

“There was once a dream that was Rome,” said Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius in the movie Gladiator. “You could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish, it was so fragile. And I fear that it will not survive the winter.” But this fictional version of Marcus Aurelius was wrong. That dream was not fragile. Instead, it has been one of the most enduring dreams in all of history.

In the fifth century, Ataulf, king of the Visigoths—one of the Germanic tribes that brought an end to the Roman Empire in the West—is reported to have said: “At first, I ardently desired that the Roman name should be obliterated, and that all Roman soil should be converted into an empire of the Goths.” But the dream of Rome’s absolute monarchy and the vision of united Europe under one emperor, one law and one church was too strong. So Ataulf concluded: “I have therefore chosen the safer course of aspiring to the glory of restoring and increasing the Roman name by Gothic vigor.” So the king of the Visigoths and his Germanic brethren began a pattern that continues to this day: repeatedly claiming the mantle of a resurrected Rome.

The last 1,500 years of European history can be summarized as repeated attempts to resurrect the empire of Rome. Tyrants and kings from Charlemagne to Napoleon and the Habsburgs to Mussolini all claimed to be new Roman emperors. The title of the German king, kaiser, is merely a Germanized form of the word caesar. Rome’s law, custom and religion have become the standard for a continent.

The European Union is no exception. One of its founding fathers, Otto von Habsburg, said, “The [European] Community is living largely by the heritage of the Holy Roman Empire, though the great majority of the people who live by it don’t know by what heritage they live.” More and more, the popular press is likening the EU to the medieval Holy Roman Empire—so called because its rulers all shared the dream that was Rome.

But there was one small corner of the empire that never bought into that dream. Even after 350 years of Roman occupation, its inhabitants rejected the idea that they were Roman.

Britain was different from the rest of Europe then, and it’s different today. That difference is key to understanding the future of the EU, as Britain drifts, once again, toward the exit.

Not-So-Roman Britain

The Britons “might be within the Roman Empire. But they were outside the charmed circle of Romanness,” writes historian David Starkey in his history of Britain, Crown and Country. “They were subjects and natives. They were not Romans.”

The Roman Empire was full of Gauls, Spaniards and even Germans—whose homeland wasn’t even part of the empire—serving in high office, yet they considered themselves full-fledged Romans. But few if any Britons were among them.

“Whatever the reason … the British then, remained semi-detached from the empire, just as the British now are semi-detached from the European Union,” Starkey concludes.

Norman Davies, a historian with very different political leanings and a different view of history to Starkey, draws the same conclusion. “[T]here can be little doubt that the Roman lifestyle was only adopted by a minority of the total population,” he writes in his book The Isles: A History.

As best as can be seen through the mists of time, the Britons kicked out the Roman invaders in a.d. 410, and then wrote to the emperor to obtain legal sanction for their act. They got it. “It was a unique event in the history of the Roman Empire; it was based on no precedent, and had no parallels elsewhere,” writes Paul Johnson in The Offshore Islanders. “For the first time a colony had regained its independence by law; and it was to remain the last occasion until, in the 20th century, the offshore islanders began the constitutional dismantlement of their own empire.”

After the sacking of Rome in a.d. 410, Britain and most of Western Europe were overrun by Germanic-speaking barbarians. Yet still the Britons remained different. In Europe, life after the fall of Rome was essentially the same as before. People lived in the same towns and cities, worshiped under the same bishops, served the same lords and spoke the same language. All that changed was the remote figure at the top of the empire. The Germanic invaders “divided and localized” the Roman rule, “but they kept all of the wealth, pomp and authority they could,” writes Starkey.

“In Britannia it was a different story,” he continues. “Here the fall of Rome marked the end of Romanness.” When the barbarians came to Britain, they did not try to set up a new Rome.

“Everything that was Roman about Britain,” he says, was “annihilated.”

“Quite why the Anglo-Saxons should have behaved so differently from their fellow Germanic tribesmen across the Channel it is hard to say,” he writes.

“[I]n Britannia, uniquely in Western Europe, there was a fresh start. For along with their new language, the Anglo-Saxons brought a new society, new gods and a new, very different set of political values. And from these, in time, they would create a nation and an empire which would rival Rome. A version of their tongue would replace Latin as the lingua franca: English common law would challenge Roman law as the dominant legal system; and they would devise, in free-market economics, a new form of business that would transform human wealth and welfare.

“Most importantly, perhaps, they would invent a new politics which depended on participation and consent, rather than on the top-down autocracy of Rome. It is a story to be proud of and, at its heart, lies a single institution: the monarchy” (ibid).

The Fate of Modern Rome

These two rival systems have significant bearing on Europe today. That history could repeat itself so directly after 2,000 years have gone by is astonishing. In the rough outline of the disagreements among English leaders on whether or not to expel the legions in the twilight years of ancient Rome, we can see a reflection of Britain’s current debates about its place in the EU.

But there are important differences. In the days of Rome, Britain was an unimportant provincial island at the extremity of the empire. In the EU, however, Britain is a major and influential neighbor. It is not as influential as it would like and nowhere near as powerful as it once was, but it is certainly no mere European colony.

Membership in the EU has been bad for Britain in many ways, but it has come with one advantage. The firm presence of this opposing British system has slowed the EU’s development into a modern incarnation of the Holy Roman Empire. But now, as Britain shuffles toward the exit, its influence on Europe is leaving with it. This frees the Continent to accelerate its integration into a new Roman Empire.

Britain isn’t the only EU member that has remained free of this Roman tradition. Scandinavia, for example, has never been drawn into the orbit of Rome or the Holy Roman Empire. The Netherlands was a founding EU member, yet it has never really shared the dream of Rome. Along with Britain, these nations have helped prevent Europe from once again traveling the path toward the Holy Roman Empire. But with British influence waning, they lack the clout to do so any more.

Romano Prodi, one of the EU’s elder statesmen, describes the effect of Britain’s flirtations with exiting. “France is ever more disoriented, and Britain is losing power by the day in Brussels after its decision to hold a referendum on EU membership,” he wrote in an article for the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero (Nov. 23, 2014).

The result of this retreat is a new power structure building around Germany.

“Germany is exercising an almost solitary power,” Prodi continued. “The new presidents of the Commission and the Council are men who rotate around Germany’s orbit, and above all there is a very strong (German) presence among the directors, heads of cabinet and their deputies. The bureaucracy is adapting to the new correlation of forces.”

The Telegraph’s international business editor, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, correctly identified what Prodi is describing: “a reconstituted Holy Roman Empire governed from Berlin.” As Britain turns to exit, Europe is once again resurrecting that dream of Rome.

But Evans-Pritchard makes clear that he doesn’t think this new Holy Roman Empire is a viable future for Europe. “If Mr. Prodi is broadly correct—and I suspect he is—British withdrawal from the EU will accelerate an unstable chain reaction and ultimately cause the whole project to unravel,” he wrote. “It is simply unthinkable that the EU can survive as a reconstituted Holy Roman Empire governed from Berlin, yet without at least the charisma and sanctity bestowed on the medieval Hohenstaufen [a dynasty that ruled the Holy Roman Empire] by Rome” (Nov. 24, 2014).

In other words, Europe cannot exist as a German-led Holy Roman Empire without the moral and religious support of the Catholic Church that it had anciently. Evans-Pritchard does not believe it will get that support, and that therefore the whole thing will fall apart.

The Missing Ingredient

His analysis only slightly misses the mark, and mirrors very closely what Herbert W. Armstrong, editor in chief of the Trumpet’s predecessor, the Plain Truth, wrote in his book The United States and Britain in Prophecy: Europe’s “leaders talk continually of political union—which means, also, military. So far they have been unable to bring about full political union. This will be made possible by the ‘good offices’ of the Vatican, who alone can be the symbol of unity to which they can look.”

That situation continues to this day. As has now been well documented, top European leaders launched the euro, Europe’s common currency, in order to force the nations that use it to come together in a political union. That has not happened yet. As bad as it was, the euro crisis was an insufficient catalyst. The missing ingredient in the formula is the Vatican. And there are signs it won’t be missing for much longer.

“A 2,000-year-old history links Europe and Christianity,” Pope Francis told the European Parliament on November 25. Francis was the first pope to address that Parliament in 30 years, and his speech was accompanied by frequent outbreaks of applause. “This history, in large part, must still be written,” he said. “It is our present and our future. It is our identity. Europe urgently needs to recover its true features in order to grow, as its founders intended, in peace and harmony, since it is not yet free of conflicts.”

As men like Prodi and Evans-Pritchard see, an EU without Britain and that separate, anti-Roman tradition will lurch toward becoming a new German-led Holy Roman Empire. This would fall apart without the Catholic Church. However, the church will not let that happen. Once EU leaders are desperate enough to give the Vatican a greater role in the Union, the moral and religious force of the Vatican will come to bear. The EU may come close to collapse before that happens, but the dream of a united Europe—a new Rome—is too strong to fall that quickly.

Why the Difference?

Again, we return to the question: Why does Britain not share that dream? Why is it necessary for the UK to get out of the way for this unity to happen? Why, after 2,000 years, does this stark difference remain between the British and Roman ways of life? That difference is not merely down to an accident of geography. It’s something deeper.

Herbert W. Armstrong found this deeper dimension in the Bible, as he explained in The United States and Britain in Prophecy. It is the biblical and prophetic identity of the British people—as well as those of European peoples, especially the Germans. That same key unlocks the reason for the radical difference between Britain and the Europe that seeks to resurrect Rome. It also unlocks deeper meaning in Britain and Europe’s history.

In that book, Mr. Armstrong proves that Britain, America and several other modern European nations actually descended from Abraham. (They are the modern nations of Israel.)

Because of His promises to Abraham—and not for any special talents or virtues of the British—God gave Britain a world-ruling empire. To do this, He had to preserve them and separate them from the continent of Europe. At the same time, the repeatedly resurrected Roman Empire played a separate role in His plans. Neither group of people is better than the other. Both Britain and Europe are sinning peoples who live in a world that has rejected God. In the coming, God-ruled world, the descendants of Israel and Germany (Assyria) are listed, side by side, among the leading nations of the world (Isaiah 19:24-25).

But for today, God is allowing a revival of the Holy Roman Empire to emerge to punish modern Israel—mainly Britain, America and the Jews in the Middle East. These nations have a long history with God, as detailed in the Bible. They received a huge abundance of blessings from Him. Yet they have become deeply sinful nations—leading many other nations into a way of life that brings misery and hopelessness.

This is the ultimate reason why Britain and the EU cannot mix. Britain is descended from biblical Israel, God’s own nation, and the Holy Roman Empire is the system God will use to punish those descendants of Israel.

This is why, when Herbert Armstrong wrote of a “soon-coming resurrected ‘Holy Roman Empire’—a sort of soon-coming ‘United States of Europe’—a union of 10 nations to rise up out of or following the Common Market of today,” he said that “Britain will not be in that empire soon to come” (Mystery of the Ages; request your free copy). This explains why the forces in Britain that would take it out of the EU are gaining ground, and why ukip will be a force to watch in next year’s UK general election. It also reveals why we should expect a further hardening of attitudes among Europeans toward Britain.

As far back as 1956, Mr. Armstrong wrote, “Germany is the economic and military heart of Europe. Probably Germany will lead and dominate the coming United States of Europe. But Britain will be no part of it!”

Herbert Armstrong understood this lost master key. The insight this gave him meant he could forecast Britain’s current existential angst about its EU membership—50 years in advance.

This understanding unlocks 2,000 years, and more, of European history. And, far more importantly, it unlocks the purpose God is working out here on Earth, the gospel that Christ brought, and the earthshaking events of the coming few years.

“There is a direct and most vital connection between this true gospel, which Christ taught, and the uniting of 10 nations in Europe,” wrote Mr. Armstrong in the March 1973 Plain Truth. “Prophecy is directly connected with the true gospel.”

This understanding of this master key goes far beyond merely unlocking the history of a small island off the northeast coast of Europe and its place in the EU. “[A]n entire third of our Maker’s revelation to mankind [the Bible] is devoted to prophecy—writing the history of future events before they occur,” wrote Mr. Armstrong in The United States and Britain in Prophecy. “These foretold future events reveal the great purpose being finally worked out—being brought to its completion.”

Understanding this master key unlocks the great purpose that is being worked out in world events. It is understanding that no one can afford to be without.

]]>Richard PalmerTue, 03 Mar 2015 06:00:00 +0100http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/12325.33682.171.0/britain/what-happens-when-you-take-the-uk-out-of-the-euBritain's Biggest Problem Is Not the EUhttp://tracking.feedpress.it/link/4298/602924
There’s a new mood among Britain’s euroskeptics. As one of the Trumpet’s correspondents stationed in the United Kingdom, I periodically attend the meetings of some of the groups that want out of the European Union. Over the past few months, these meetings have subtly changed.

The meetings once revolved around holding a referendum on Britain’s relationship with the EU. The assumption was that if only someone would hold a referendum, then of course Britain would vote to get out.

Now that a referendum seems likely, if not inevitable, these meetings revolve around a slightly different question: How do we win a referendum?

For years, many, including myself, have taken for granted that a referendum would be a walk in the park. Pro-EU politicians are overwhelmingly against having a referendum, therefore, the logic went, a referendum must result in their defeat.

In fact, the poll numbers have jumped all over the place—making the results of a referendum, from a purely statistic point of view, hard to call. In May 2012, 51 percent of those surveyed said they wanted out of the EU, compared to 28 percent who wanted to stay in. But the most resent stats, published by YouGov on February 25, show that 45 percent want to remain in the EU, while only 35 percent want out.

Why is the EU so popular? Why would euroskeptics struggle to win a vote? At the heart of this question is a deep, long-standing problem in Britain that is hurting the nation far more than EU membership ever could.

At the core of Britain’s EU membership and all the problems it brings, is a failure of Britain’s leadership.

For 40 years or so, the British public has reluctantly gone along with EU membership, only because it has been persuaded to do so by those at the top.

Consider Britain’s current situation. The Conservative Party, the largest party in Britain’s governing coalition, is pro-EU. It has a significant minority of euroskeptics and is less pro-EU than other parties, but its official position is for EU membership. The Liberal Democrats, the Conservatives’ coalition partners, are also pro-EU. The Labor Party—Britain’s official opposition and largest left-wing party—is pro-EU. The Scottish National Party, on target to win an overwhelming majority in Scotland, is pro-EU. Plaid Cymru—the Welsh nationalist party—is pro-EU. The overwhelming majority of Britain’s politicians and political parties are pro-EU.

Then consider journalism. The bbc, by far Britain’s most influential news source, is pro-EU, airing only the other night an EU-funded documentary that warned of poverty, war and general mayhem if the process of EU integration was to come to a halt. The vast majority of Britain’s newspapers—the Sun, the Times, the Guardian, the Independent and the Mirror—are all pro-EU. Only the Telegraph and Daily Express are against it.

In business, the opinions are far more mixed. However the loudest voices, like the Confederation of British Industry, tend to be pro-EU. And on the left, trade unions are also very keen on Britain’s EU membership.

“The illusion that a nation can flourish without strong international alliances distorts the bigger picture of our shared humanity,” Church of England bishops warn in their letter.

“English churchmen worked tirelessly to promote understanding and cooperation between the European churches and to encourage the political institutions of the European nations to work for the common good and focus on what they shared, not what divided them,” they write regarding the foundation of the EU.

From abroad, we get the same message. Obviously EU leaders encourage Britain to remain in the Union. But the most powerful man in the world, in theory at least, United States President Barack Obama, also encourages Britain to remain in the EU.

Given the overwhelming support for the EU from all aspects of British leadership, it is amazing that opposition to the EU is as strong as it is. The people who make our laws are pro-EU. So are the people we watch on tv in the evening, those we turn to for news, and even those who preach on Sunday.

Many today talk about how Britain signed up for a free-trade union only to find itself a member of an aspiring superstate. That may be true of Britain’s voters—who were promised that this was about free trade and nothing more—but it is not true of Britain’s leaders. They knew exactly what they were signing up for.

In 1971, the Foreign Office wrote a memo advising the government that EU membership would mean the “transfer of major executive responsibilities to the bureaucratic commission in Brussels.” This, it said, “will exacerbate popular feelings of alienation from government.” The Foreign Office concluded that “there would be a major responsibility on HM government and on all political parties not to exacerbate public concern by attributing unpopular policies to the remote and unmanageable workings of the [European] Community.”

Britain’s EU membership, then, is something foisted on the nation by the consensus of its leaders. It was made possible only by those at the top—the political leaders—hiding the true nature of membership from voters.

In other words, Britain’s EU membership is Britain’s fault. The EU did not dupe our leaders into membership—they entered wide-eyed and willingly. The EU did not force Britain in. We cannot blame foreign interference.

That fact is not talked about enough. Even if British voters dragged their leadership out of the Union in a referendum, the same people would still be in charge at home. The core problem would remain, and many more poor decisions would follow.

I’d not thought about this point enough myself, until I heard a recent speech by Douglas Carswell.

“I don’t think there’s any mileage … in blaming Brussels,” he cautioned at a recent Bruges Group meeting. “It’s a homegrown problem. It’s entirely the result of sclerotic thinking in Westminster. It is entirely a failure of our own political leadership in this country to think up some fresh alternatives.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nrp7v7H3YAU&feature=youtu.be

He continued:

This country’s political system once produced some pretty extraordinary and remarkable people: Winston Churchill, who saved this country from fascism; Clement Attlee, the founder of the welfare state—an impressive man in a very quiet way …; Margret Thatcher, who I think saved this country from socialism.

He went on to mourn the lack of “vision and verve and imagination and character” in today’s politicians.

While Attlee probably wouldn’t make my list of top three British prime ministers, Carswell’s point is a good one. Britain once produced great leaders—now it does not.

“O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err,” God warns in the book of Isaiah. That’s exactly what we see in Britain. And that’s a far bigger problem than EU membership.

]]>Richard PalmerTue, 03 Mar 2015 06:00:00 +0100http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/12455.33680.0.0/britain/britains-biggest-problem-is-not-the-euWhen Will the World End?http://tracking.feedpress.it/link/4298/599332
A sensationalist news story swept the nation this past spring when preacher Harold Camping proclaimed that May 21 would commence the rapture of true believers and set off the beginning of the end of the world. His followers abandoned their careers and sold all their earthly belongings in preparation, while scoffers held “end of the world” parties as the declared deadline came and went without incident.

According to Camping, “God’s wrath was supposed to begin in New Zealand and then race across the globe, leaving millions of bodies wherever the clock struck 6 p.m.,” the Los Angeles Times wrote. “But the hours ticked by, and New Zealand survived. Time zone by time zone, the apocalypse failed to materialize” (May 22).

Camping made a similar prediction in 1994, but it received little publicity and was hardly the media furor that erupted this year. This time, the story headlined newspapers around the globe. Why?

Well, have a look at our world. It’s plagued with wars and rumors of wars. The Middle East is in turmoil, Western nations are in the throes of massive debt crises and the entire globe is being pummeled in an unprecedented wave of natural disasters. “History making” and “record breaking” seem like commonplace phrases these days.

In a world spinning further and further out of control, perhaps the idea of “the end of the world”—or that people would look for a way off this sinking ship—isn’t so crazy after all.

Critics of Mr. Camping have rightfully pointed to Matthew 25:13, where it says we cannot know the exact day or hour of Christ’s return—only the Father knows that. But does this mean we should ignore Bible prophecy altogether and just focus on principles of Christian living, simply because of the failed prediction of a man?

In Matthew 24:3, Christ’s disciples asked Him for signs of His coming and of the “end of the world”—meaning the end of the age of man’s rule over man. The disciples understood that Jesus was about to leave for heaven. They also knew He would come again, as He promised in John 14:3, to establish the Kingdom of God on Earth, headquartered in Jerusalem. They just didn’t yet know all the details of the events leading up to His return—so they asked Him for signs.

Notice! Jesus didn’t ridicule them for asking about the end of the world, like so many theologians undoubtedly would today. Instead, He gave them specific signs pointing to His return! He warned about widespread religious deception first—people who would come preaching that Jesus is Christ and would deceive many with that message.

“Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not,” He said in verse 23 of Matthew 24. This statement alone reveals how confused religious leaders are about where Christ is. The Bible warns against blindly accepting what men say about Christ or His return. It’s what the Bible says that matters.

Notice verse 26: “Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the desert; go not forth: behold, he is in the secret chambers; believe it not.” Some people today believe Christ is already here—that He returned secretly. Others, like Camping’s followers, believe in a secret rapture, when true believers are whisked away secretly while everyone else is left behind to suffer through the plagues of the Great Tribulation.

Jesus said don’t you believe it! When He comes, as it says in Revelation 1:7, every eye shall see Him! Matthew continued, “For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be” (verse 27).

In Mark’s Gospel, we are admonished to learn the parable of the fig tree—in that when it brings forth leaves, you know summer is near. “So ye in like manner, when ye shall see these things come to pass, know that it is nigh, even at the doors” (Mark 13:29). No man can know the day or the hour. But we can know—we will know—when it is near, if we are prayerfully watching world events.

“Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is” (verse 33). Because we don’t know the day or hour, don’t bother watching. That’s what men say. God says it’s precisely because we don’t know the day or hour that we watch and pray! Bring God into your watching, in other words.

“Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning: Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping” (verses 35-36). The word watch means to be awake, vigilant! It means to pay attention and be active.

How could we do this without a proper grasp of prophetic events? Why would Jesus give so many different signs pointing to His return if He didn’t intend for us to balance our spiritual diets with a healthy portion of biblical prophecy?

No one needs to be confused or in doubt about the chronology of end-time events: It is clearly spelled out for those who are willing to let the Bible interpret itself (2 Peter 1:19-21).

God doesn’t want us to stop doing the work so we can set dates. But neither does He want us to ignore prophecy or say in our hearts, “My lord delayeth his coming” (Matthew 24:48).

The pace of prophetic events marches on inexorably and without delay. Mankind’s experiment with self-government is about over. How do we know? Because the events Jesus Himself prophesied to be a sign of the end of the age and His soon-coming return are now coming to pass—exactly as He said they would.

]]>theTrumpet.comMon, 02 Mar 2015 06:00:00 +0100http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/8451.33678.136.0/religion/bible/when-will-the-world-endNetanyahu: The Last Defense Against a Deal With Iranhttp://tracking.feedpress.it/link/4298/599333
As the March deadline for a nuclear deal approaches, questions are again raised about the merits of making a deal with Iran. On one side stands the Obama administration—champion of a deal. On the other side is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—unequivocally the most vocal opponent to a bad deal.

Netanyahu argues that a deal with Iran will likely allow it to maintain its nuclear infrastructure, meaning Iran could still manufacture nuclear weapons if it wishes. The Israeli prime minister believes that any deal reached should require Iran to tear down its infrastructure—a move Iran will never agree to.

Netanyahu has been a staunch defender of this position ever since negotiations began in November 2013. Yet since that time, he has enjoyed little support from the international community. And from Washington—a historic ally—there has been clear and evident hostility.

The reason for much of the negativity stems from United States President Barack Obama’s lack of regard for his allies while attempting to build a relationship with long-standing enemy Iran. This approach has led to the president butting heads with Netanyahu as the two voice their disagreements.

Netanyahu is very much alone. But armed with years of experience and arguably placed in the best geographic position to argue a case against Iran, Netanyahu’s Israel presents a very strong case against President Obama and his new friends in Iran.

As such, if the Obama administration is to be uncontested as it pushes through a deal, Netanyahu must be silenced. And unfortunately for President Obama, Netanyahu is set to address the U.S. Congress on March 3 and again at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference. These speeches are being heralded as Netanyahu’s chief effort to derail a looming nuclear deal.

Firstly, the speech will be boycotted by a number of U.S. officials. Neither President Obama nor Vice President Joe Biden will be in attendance. The president also said he would not meet with Mr. Netanyahu because Israel’s elections are so close. It is a thinly veiled cold shoulder by both the president and vice president. A number of liberal congressmen and congresswomen have also voiced objections to Netanyahu’s speech, saying they will not be in attendance.

The administration has also been slinging mud at the prime minister. Many have labeled him as “divisive” and reckless in his plans to speak before Congress. The administration would prefer that Netanyahu take the podium as a perceived “Chicken Little” rather than as a leader trying desperately to defend his country.

For the Obama administration, what it really boils down to is a fear of what Netanyahu may achieve. Israeli reporter Caroline Glick stated, “More than anything, [President Obama’s actions] expose a deep-seated fear that Netanyahu will be successful in exposing the grave danger that Obama’s policies toward Iran and toward the Islamic world in general pose to the global security.”

Netanyahu has a real chance to present his side of the argument come March. But Washington will not see its agenda so easily scuttled. Even if Netanyahu gives a powerful speech and manages to convince a few, ultimately he will still have to remain the face of the opposition. And the Israeli elections are just around the corner on March 17. If Netanyahu is defeated by his chief rival, Isaac Herzog, Israel will undoubtedly align itself quickly with Washington.

As Glick noted in her article, the U.S. has already hinted at its desire to topple Netanyahu. Speaking before the Trilateral Commission, Secretary of State John Kerry threatened that Israel was destined to be an apartheid state if more concessions were not made to the Palestinians. He said, “If there is a change of government [in Israel], or a change of heart, something will happen.”

Mr. Obama’s own national field director for his 2012 campaign, Jeremy Bird, is now working for an Israel-based group called V15. The lobby group is profoundly anti-Netanyahu. The fact that Mr. Obama has allowed Bird to fill the role shows he has no qualms about toppling Netanyahu.

The danger of such an eventuality should shake the Western world—particularly Israel. If Netanyahu is removed, the mouthpiece of opposition will be stifled. No doubt some Republicans will seek to oppose President Obama’s deals, but they can’t be heard on an international level like Netanyahu can.

Without Netanyahu, the way would be clear for Mr. Obama to charge ahead with whatever deals he pleases with Iran.

A voice of opposition is vital, particularly in a situation where Iran’s nuclear capabilities are on the line. As the Obama administration continues to acquiesce to Iranian demands and pushes for a deal—even when it means isolating allies and ignoring history—someone needs to be a counterweight. Right now that obligation has fallen on Netanyahu.

Israel would be the first to feel the brunt of an Iranian attack. The prime minister has seen firsthand the deluge of hatred emanating from Israel’s neighbors. The idea of a nuclear enemy in the Middle East would be totally untenable for the little nation.

As dangerous as a nuclear deal may look today, it would be far worse without a strong voice of opposition. And don’t think this only affects a tiny nation in the Middle East—this concerns the whole world! Notice what Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry said in his Key of David program titled “Why You Must Watch Jerusalem.”

Mr. Netanyahu is coming here to speak before Congress, he wants to talk to the world really about a massive danger—not only to Israel, but to this entire planet. And he is very passionate about it. You will see that when he comes here in March, I’m sure. He will be talking about the number one problem facing humanity, which is that of human survival.

This affects us all!

Mr. Flurry continues:

[M]an is about to destroy all human life off this planet! Is there anything more urgent than that? I tell you, if you listen to Mr. Netanyahu’s speech I think you’ll get a lot of that from it, and I hope that you will listen to it when he speaks in March because it is something that this whole world needs to be listening to.

This pivotal speech by the loudest opponent to a nuclear deal is about to take place. Watch as the Obama administration does everything in its power to discredit and undermine that speech and ultimately silence any opposition to a nuclear deal.

]]>Callum WoodMon, 02 Mar 2015 06:00:00 +0100http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/12451.33674.0.0/world/wmd/netanyahu-the-last-defense-against-a-deal-with-iranIs the Old Testament Reliable?http://tracking.feedpress.it/link/4298/595890
Many Christians think the Old Testament is not an integral part of the Holy Scriptures. They think it is only a collection of Jewish stories, with varying degrees of historical accuracy. Many today believe that some major events described in the Old Testament cannot be literally true.

Notice, however, these words from the New Testament: “Allscripture is given by inspiration of God …” (2 Timothy 3:16). The word inspiration in the Greek means God-breathed. In other words, God personally coordinated the Bible’s development and directly inspired its writing. The Bible—all of it—is the authoritative Word of God in print.

Let’s consider the authority of the Old Testament—from a biblical and archeological perspective.

Jesus Confirms the Old Testament

Many Christians today do not think the Old Testament is historical fact. What did Jesus think?

1. What fundamental truth did Jesus tell us about Himself? John 14:6. Where are the prophecies about His life found? John 5:39.

comment: Notice that Jesus pointed to “the scriptures.” The only sacred writings that the Jews possessed that foretold the coming of the Messiah were the books of the Old Testament. Here, Jesus validates them as Scripture. He also cited the Old Testament as a true and reliable source of history.

2. Did Christ suppose that the first humans evolved, or did He acknowledge that Adam and Eve were created? Matthew 19:4. Compare Genesis 1:27; 5:2.

3. Did Jesus mention Adam and Eve’s son Abel? Matthew 23:35.

comment: Jesus not only confirmed Abel’s existence, but He referred to his righteousness as well. Also discussed in this verse is the murder of Zechariah, son of Barachias (or Berechiah, as the New King James Version renders it). Undoubtedly, this refers to the prophet of the Old Testament, whose father was Berechiah (Zechariah 1:1).

4. What about Noah’s ark and the Flood? Is it fact or fiction? Matthew 24:37-39.

comment: Jesus gave personal testimony of the Flood! He corroborated its history, alluded to its causes and reiterated the universal death—except for Noah and his family—that occurred.

5. Is the account of Sodom and Gomorrah a fable—or truth? Luke 17:28-29, 32.

comment: Again, we have Jesus’s personal testimony of the veracity of Old Testament history, exactly as recorded in the book of Genesis (chapter 19).

6. Did Jesus verify that King David lived? Matthew 12:3. Did He identify King Solomon too? Verse 42.

comment: These scriptures prove that Jesus Christ believed and accepted the testimony of the Old Testament as absolutely authoritative!

The New Testament refers to the Old Testament about 250 times. We cannot accept the New Testament without recognizing the authority and accuracy of the Old!

Archeology Backs Up the Old Testament

In addition to the New Testament declaration of the reliability of the Old Testament, the relatively new science of archeology has confirmed without question the historical accuracy of the Bible. Solid, documented evidence apart from the Bible confirms events and persons that at one time were known only from Scripture. Let’s look at just a few discoveries.

The Behistun Inscription dates back to 516 b.c. and is an account of Darius the Great’s assumption of the Persian throne. It was written in cuneiform in three languages. The deciphering of this trilingual inscription in the 19th century was a tremendous breakthrough because it enabled thousands of other cuneiform writings of many Middle Eastern cultures to be translated—for example, the tablets at the ruins of Nineveh, Shalmaneser’s Black Obelisk, Shennacherib’s Prism and the epic poems of Gilgamesh and Enuma Elish. (These poems contain accounts of creation, the tower of Babel and the Flood that closely parallel the Bible.) The unlocking of the Behistun Inscription opened the door for archeology to confirm biblical history many times over!

Bible critics had long scoffed at references in the Bible to a people called the Hittites (Genesis 15:20; Exodus 3:8, 17; Numbers 13:29; Joshua 1:4; Judges 1:26 and elsewhere). Their opinion was that the Hittites were simply one of the many mythical peoples concocted by writers of the Bible, or at best, a small and unimportant tribe.

But the critics were wrong. Archeological discoveries toward the end of the 19th century of Hittite monuments at Carchemish on the Euphrates River in Syria, and later, in 1906, of thousands of Hittite documents in Turkey, revealed a wealth of information about Hittite history and culture. The Hittites were once a dominant people, exercising control over Syria and parts of Palestine.

Some critics also doubted that the Babylonian captivity of Judah actually occurred in spite of specific details given in 2 Kings 24-25. Once again, they were proved wrong! Twenty-one pottery fragments inscribed in the ancient Hebrew script were unearthed between 1935 and 1938 at a site thought to be ancient Lachish—one of the cities besieged by the king of Babylon at the same time as the siege of Jerusalem (Jeremiah 34:7). Called the Lachish Ostraca, or Lachish Letters, they were written during the very time of the Babylonian siege. Some of them were exchanges between the city’s military commander and an outlying observation post, vividly picturing the final days of Judah’s desperate struggle against Babylon!

In 1974 and 1977, Italian archeologists found approximately 17,000 cuneiform tablets and fragments at the site of ancient Ebla in northern Syria. The inscriptions on these artifacts date them prior to the 24th-century b.c. Noachian Flood. Similar finds were uncovered in Egypt and Mesopotamia. Many critics ridiculed the idea that Moses could have written the first five books of the Old Testament, saying that writing was unknown at that time. The Ebla tablets and other pre-Flood inscriptions prove otherwise. Writing was common centuries before Moses!

More recently, in August 2005, workers repairing a sewage-pipe break in Old Jerusalem uncovered the Pool of Siloam, mentioned in John 9:1-11. “Scholars have said that there wasn’t a Pool of Siloam and that John was using a religious conceit” to make a point, New Testament scholar James H. Charlesworth of the Princeton Theological Seminary said. “Now, we have found the Pool of Siloam … exactly where John said it was.” A Gospel that was thought to be “pure theology is now shown to be grounded in history,” he said (Los Angeles Times, Aug. 9, 2005). Many of the scholars were wrong—again. The Bible is accurate—always!

The same year, archeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar unearthed King David’s palace. The Bible says the king of Tyre built David a palace after he had conquered the Jebusite fortress and turned it into the City of David—or Jerusalem (2 Samuel 5:11). “But when the Philistines heard that they had anointed David king over Israel, all the Philistines came up to seek David; and David heard of it, and went down to the [strong]hold”—or, the fortress (verse 17). After reading this, Dr. Mazar wondered, “Down from where? Presumably from where he lived, his palace” (New York Times, Aug. 5, 2005). So she started digging immediately north of the City of David, right at the top of Mount Zion. And after just one season of digging, she discovered a massive wall, up to 10 feet wide in some places, and running 100 feet in length, east to west. Subsequent discoveries within the palace area have added to the proof that the structure is King David’s palace.

Skeptical of the Bible’s account, archeologists have long debated “to what extent Jerusalem was an important city or even a city in the time of David and Samuel” (Times, op. cit.). Some scholars suggest that King David and Solomon were nothing more than petty tribal chieftains who ruled over an area comprising little more than a few scattered rural clans. The massive structure found by Dr. Mazar refutes that view!

Most recently, Dr. Mazar discovered King Solomon’s wall, mentioned in 1 Kings 3:1. The wall not only confirms the presence of Solomon in Jerusalem, it confirms the biblical narrative of Israel as a large and advanced kingdom (article, page 10).

There are literally hundreds more archeological discoveries that corroborate Bible history. In his book A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, Gleason Archer Jr. quotes author John Elder as saying, “Little by little, one city after another, one civilization after another, one culture after another whose memories were enshrined only in the Bible, were restored to their proper places in ancient history by the studies of archaeologists .… Contemporary records of biblical events have been unearthed and the uniqueness of the biblical revelation has been emphasized .… Nowhere has archaeological discovery refuted the Bible as history” (emphasis added).

You can count on the Old Testament to be accurate and true!

Old Testament Important for Christians Today

We have seen evidence both from the New Testament and from modern archaeology that verifies the Old Testament accounts. But why did God preserve the Old Testament? What importance does it have for us today?

1. Did God personally address the nation of Israel and reveal His law to it? Exodus 20:1-17; Deuteronomy 5:1-4. Is the law binding today? Matthew 5:17-20; 1 John 3:22.

comment: Christians are to be “doers of the law” (Romans 2:13; see also James 1:22). The Ten Commandments spoken at Mount Sinai are binding today in both the letter and spiritual intent. The Old Testament preserves God’s law, as well as many other principles and judgments that Christians should still live by today.

2. Why else was the history of ancient Israel preserved in the Old Testament? 1 Corinthians 10:11; Romans 15:4.

comment: We are the people living in the final throes of man’s civilization! God preserved the history of ancient Israel’s rebellion “for our admonition” so we would learn lessons from it and not repeat the same mistakes. Only the Bible can teach us those lessons.

3. What did the Apostle Paul tell us about the Scriptures? 2 Timothy 3:15-16.

comment: All Scripture, Paul wrote, was inspired by God or, more correctly, “God-breathed.” When he recorded these words, the only “Scriptures” in existence were the Old Testament. The New Testament was not completed. Paul taught that all Scripture is to be used to establish doctrine, correct false beliefs or errant behavior, and instruct and train in righteousness!

]]>theTrumpet.comSun, 01 Mar 2015 06:00:00 +0100http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/8448.33677.136.0/religion/bible/is-the-old-testament-reliableStoners Rejoice--It's 4/20 in Washington, D.C.http://tracking.feedpress.it/link/4298/595891
On the morning of February 26, Washington, D.C., became the newest frontier in the national movement for legalizing recreational marijuana. Adults in the district can now possess two ounces, grow up to six plants, and share their crop yields with others—but it’s not yet legal to buy or sell the drug.

D.C. follows Colorado, Washington and Alaska in legalizing pot. But policymakers in those states are still working out regulatory structures, and, under federal law, marijuana remains a Schedule 1 narcotic. That makes using it a federal crime. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser says that doesn’t matter, though, because the people of the District favor legalization: “We would encourage the Congress to not be so concerned with overturning what 7-in-10 voters said should be the law in the District of Columbia,” she said at a February 25 conference.

House Republicans say the voter approval doesn’t matter and that Bowser could face prison time for the initiative. The District of Columbia is under Congress’s jurisdiction, so any legislation must be submitted to Congress for approval. In December, Congress passed a spending bill for D.C. that included a provision banning the legalization of marijuana. This bill makes D.C.’s new pot laws illegal. “[T]oday we have one Washington against the other,” the New York Times wrote of the conflict.

Concern abounds not just over the contradiction between federal and regional laws, but also over D.C.’s failure to open up legal channels to buy and sell cannabis. In the absence of customary commerce, a social economy is expected to take root. And aspects of the illegal trade will inevitably be seedy. “People are going to rush into the breach here and try to take advantage,” says Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. “And some will not do it right.”

]]>Jeremiah JacquesSun, 01 Mar 2015 06:00:00 +0100http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/12449.33672.0.0/society/stoners-rejoice-its-4-20-in-washington-dcThe Philadelphia Trumpet: Goals &amp; Purposeshttp://tracking.feedpress.it/link/4298/591987
Published in the public interest, the Trumpet deals with matters of social, family and environmental concern. It includes articles on international news, politics, philosophy, religion and education, especially where these have a bearing on the quality of life.

The magazine is not a political publication and is not backed by any political party or pressure group.

The publication rights of the magazine are owned by the Philadelphia Church of God, and the purpose of the Trumpet is to inform and educate, putting world events into true perspective and creating an awareness of the seriousness of the times in which we live. Direct emphasis is placed on the values of Christian morality and the social results of the increasing rejection of these values. Space is at times given to controversial ideas, which may help clarify to readers the different aspects of essential issues.

The Trumpet carries no subscription price. It is supported entirely by voluntary contributions from readers. The financial support of the magazine comes from readers who have become convinced of its value and want to ensure that the Trumpet be made available free of charge to an increasing number of readers. Your contributions are welcomed and gratefully received.

In a world continually confronted by problems and crises, the Trumpet strives to give reasons for the bad news and answers to life’s dilemmas that, if applied, could bring good news and right results. This magazine also seeks to make plain the only option left to mankind if we are to survive. We announce that when mankind fails to avert the ultimate disaster, it will take a divine plan to save this Earth and establish a new order where all living will be able to enjoy lasting peace, happiness, security and prosperity.

]]>theTrumpet.comSat, 28 Feb 2015 06:00:00 +0100http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/8443.33676.136.0/world/the-philadelphia-trumpet-goals-purposesGermany's Secret Strategy to Destroy Iranhttp://tracking.feedpress.it/link/4298/591988
]]>Gerald FlurrySat, 28 Feb 2015 06:00:00 +0100http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/12453.33671.0.0/middle-east/iran/germanys-secret-strategy-to-destroy-iranRussia Is 'Pulling a Crimea' in Georgiahttp://tracking.feedpress.it/link/4298/590481
Georgia said the signing of a border deal between Russia and its breakaway region of South Ossetia on February 18 means Moscow was one step nearer to officially annexing the territory.

“It’s yet another action directed against the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia and an attempt to artificially redraw internationally recognized borders,” said the Georgian Foreign Ministry.

In 2008, Russia fought a war with Georgia over South Ossetia and another separatist region, Abkhazia. After the five-day conflict ended, Moscow recognized both regions as independent nations and asserted control over them. Only a handful of other countries have recognized the two regions’ declarations of independence, and Tbilisi insists they remain part of Georgia.

Last November, Moscow moved toward consolidating the spoils of that war by signing a “strategic partnership” deal with Abkhazia, which integrates Russian security and military forces into those of Abkhazia. The February 18 deal shows that Russia is now creating a similar scenario with South Ossetia.

Georgia has ambitions to join nato, but Russia has said it would not allow such a move. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia would “take measures to prevent the negative effect of attempts to drag Tbilisi into nato.”

Russia’s maneuvers in Georgia come less than a year after it annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, and at a time when Russia-Ukraine tensions remain high. Both Ukraine and Georgia were part of the Soviet Union before its 1991 collapse. Some in Georgia believe Russia’s recent deals with South Ossetia and Abkhazia parallel Moscow’s actions in Ukraine. “Russia, in a way, is pulling a Crimea here,” Dr. Irakli Bokuchava, a Tbilisi-based political commentator, told the Trumpet. In both nations, President Vladimir Putin’s plan is the “creation of a renewed ussr.”

Just after the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry issued this bold forecast:

Russia’s attack on Georgia in August marks the beginning of a dangerous new era in history. This was the first military strike of a rising Asian superpower—and there will be more! … Today, you have [Western leaders] trying to also bring Georgia and Ukraine into nato. I don’t believe Russia will ever allow that to happen. … Will a crisis occur over Ukraine? That area is the breadbasket of Russia, and surely it is willing to wage war over that as well.”

Time has proven that forecast stunningly accurate.

Mr. Flurry could see in 2008 that Ukraine and Georgia were not safe from Putin’s expansionist ambitions, and now it is clear that he was right. To understand more about the ongoing Ukraine crisis, and what to expect for South Ossetia and other former Soviet nations and regions, read Mr. Flurry’s article “The Crimean Crisis Is Reshaping Europe.”

]]>Jeremiah JacquesFri, 27 Feb 2015 18:00:00 +0100http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/12450.33668.0.0/world/nato/russia-is-pulling-a-crimea-in-georgiaTeach Your Children &#8232;How to Handle Moneyhttp://tracking.feedpress.it/link/4298/590290
The average college freshman will receive eight credit card offers during just his first week of school. Across the national student body, 76 percent of enrollees carry at least one credit card and on average owe a balance of $2,200.

Last year, 1.6 million students graduated from college—and 1.55 million people filed for personal bankruptcy.

Meanwhile, the percentage of “very happy” Americans peaked in 1957. Since then the figure has steadily declined despite most people consuming twice as much.

Here are two more startling facts. Fifty-two percent of teens say that when they want or need something, they simply ask for money from their parents or guardians. And 41 percent of teens get an allowance regardless of whether they do any chores.

Can we connect the dots? An alarming number of “highly educated” adults struggle to manage their money—simply because, when they were young, no one taught them how.

Proverbs says to train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. Teaching youths how to handle money is not the school’s or the government’s responsibility—it is yours. The Bible commands parents to educate their children. It should be an everyday routine (Deuteronomy 11:19).

We can help our children learn important personal finance concepts that will pay dividends for the rest of their lives.

What to Teach?

First, teach them to give.

This may seem counterintuitive, but the way of give is the foundation of God’s way of life that leads to physical and spiritual prosperity.

One of the best ways to teach your children about this way of life is through tithing and giving offerings. Don’t just show up to church and hand your child a couple of bucks to give as you are walking in. He must know how important giving and paying tithes is to you. If we don’t spend time and effort planning our offerings and calculating our tithes, how can we expect our children to value these biblical commands?

Teach your child to budget and plan ahead for these opportunities to give. The skills they will learn from this effort alone—working hard, saving, sacrificing, contributing to something bigger than themselves—will help them for life. Plus, the same scripture that commands tithing promises blessings when we obey. God loves a cheerful giver (Malachi 3:10; 2 Corinthians 9:7).

It is never too early to establish good financial habits.

I was startled a couple of months ago when my son—not quite 3 years old—began asking me about money. My wife and I had been teaching him the Ten Commandments and were explaining what stealing meant. We told him that if you want something you need to save up money and pay for it.

A couple weeks later, the money questions came. I explained that I earn money because I go to work. And that people at stores need money too, so they trade things like food and clothes for money. I tried to show him the difference between nickels, dimes and pennies and how it takes different amounts of each to add up.

His excited response? “I want to buy something.”

On Mom’s next trip to the grocery store, she let him buy something, and helped him count out the quarters. He was thrilled to be such a “big boy.”

There’s something addictive about buying things with other people’s money. He naturally wanted to do it again. But the next time we went shopping, he got a different response: “No.” Disappointed, he said something along the lines of, “But I want it!” and “Dad, couldn’t you just buy it?”

Time to teach him “delayed gratification.”

Too many people have never learned self-control. The “I want it now” mentality has caused untold financial problems. Plus, saying “no” to your children’s wants can be a good way to teach the value of money. It is a truth that people don’t value things that come easily. If you give your children whatever they want, not only will they become spoiled, but they will fail to make the connection between earning money and being able to have things.

This is why giving allowances has been harmful to so many children. Children don’t understand how much hard work is required in the real world to earn those green pieces of paper. Money expert Dave Ramsey says that the concept of paying commissions for specific work is better than giving allowances. But this too can be dangerous if your children begin to believe they should be paid to do jobs that are just a part of being a family.

The point is that at a young age, children need to learn to appreciate money, as well as the hard work associated with earning it.

Practical Pointers

With small children (younger than 5), teach about saving money using clear jars or a piggy bank. Let them see their money grow as they add coins to the jar. Visual reinforcement can be a powerful tool. Be excited for them when they add the quarter they found on the street, or the dollar or two that Grandpa gave them.

When they are older (perhaps 5 to 12), consider the envelope system to teach them about giving, saving and spending. Have four envelopes labeled “tithes,” “offerings,” “savings” and “spending.” When they receive a gift of money for exceptional grades, or they shovel the neighbor’s driveway, teach them to divide their money up into the proper categories.

And remember, there must be some spending to keep it fun and fulfill short-term goal setting. But when the spending envelope is dry—and depending on the child, that might not take long—there should be no pilfering from the savings envelope. That is for long-term goals, and for teaching the value of having an emergency savings that you never touch.

If you have teenagers, help them open a savings and checking account. Teach them how money in a savings account earns a return, and how interest compounds and grows your savings over time. Also teach about the dangers of debt and having to pay interest on borrowed money. Make sure they know how credit cards work and how they can get hit with fees, penalties and high interest rates. If you don’t understand all these concepts yourself, the Internet contains valuable resources to help (and write for our free booklet Solve Your Money Troubles!). Show why a debit card is different from a credit card. Another good exercise is to teach your children how to balance a checkbook and to keep tabs on their account.

With older teens, especially those with jobs, make them pay for some things themselves. Help them set long-term savings goals. Teach them that not all expenses are things you look forward to, and show them that paying for others can be rewarding.

I remember the students in high school whose parents bought them a car when they turned 16. Inevitably, they became the ones who had to buy the bigger, fancier-than-they-could-afford cars or trucks later—on credit.

As a parent, it is our job to help our children avoid the pitfalls of life.

At Imperial Academy—a grade school and secondary school run by the Philadelphia Church of God, which publishes the Trumpet magazine—grade 11 and 12 students take a personal finance class. One of the assignments they receive is to interview someone from a previous generation about their money habits. How did Grandpa or Great-grandma handle money? What was it like back then? What money advice would they offer? What do they think about credit cards and borrowing money? How much money did they get paid? Did they ever receive an allowance? What did they spend it on?

You might be shocked at how much America has changed over the past few generations. It is obvious that many Americans have not taught their children to manage their finances. With each generation, we seem to be departing further from basic, sensible financial principles.

Whether you realize it or not, your children are learning from you. So make sure to set a good example, which is the most important teaching tool of all. Lead by example—and teach them!

]]>Robert MorleyFri, 27 Feb 2015 06:00:00 +0100http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/8445.33667.136.0/society/family/teach-your-children-how-to-handle-moneyKeep Your Wordhttp://tracking.feedpress.it/link/4298/590291
“But Daddy, you said we would play soccer when you got home from work!”

Guilty.

Trouble is, when I said that, I didn’t know about the unplanned meeting that got me home 20 minutes later than usual. Plus I just didn’t feel like running around at the moment.

Ever happened to you? This is a crucial moment of decision for a dad. And the implications of our choice here might be bigger than we think.

How important is it for a child’s parents to be true to their word? Enormously important, when you consider that in the eyes of a small child, a parent stands in the place of God. We equip our children to understand how dependable, how trustworthy, how consistent God is by how well we exhibit those qualities.

Fathers in particular must give this serious thought as we lead our families.

Imagine the man who wants to take his family on a trip and announces it. The whole family is excited. But as the date of departure nears, obstacles arise—unexpected costs, unforeseen snags. Other things take precedence. The trip doesn’t seem as important. The father cancels the trip.

Commenting on this hypothetical situation in Man of Steel and Velvet, Aubrey Andelin writes, “The lack of follow-through on the part of the father can have a disheartening effect on the family. Not only is there a loss of enriching experiences that could just as well have been had, but the family suffers a certain lack of security, especially if it happens often. They will come to distrust their father’s word. When new plans are presented, there will be doubt concerning the outcome. The family willlack faith that the plans will materialize, and disillusionment will set in” (emphasis added).

The author concludes, “Considering these doubts, it appears it would be best to follow through even if it may not be quite as prudent as originally thought.”

Obviously, we are human, and unsurpassable obstructions can arise; it is certainly wise to state plans as probabilities rather than absolute promises (James 4:13-15). Nevertheless, the basic point stands. How much does our dependability as fathers and mothers influence our children’s faith? The correlation is probably stronger than we would like to admit.

Wouldn’t it be harder for a person to learn to trust God’s Word, if his or her dad never kept his word?

And wouldn’t it be easier to simply believe God, if Dad was always trustworthy?

In some vital ways, dependability is a defining characteristic of godly fatherhood.

The very foundation of our faith is God’s dependability. When our heavenly Father makes a promise, it’s as good as done. “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” (Numbers 23:19). We can count on Him to fulfill His every word. We can depend on Him to follow through every time.

James 1:17 says that with our Father, “there is no variation or shadow due to change” (Revised Standard Version).

“I am God, and there is none like me,” He assures us: “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure” (Isaiah 46:9-10).

“For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29; rsv).

We fathers, we parents, must strive to teach our children this quality of God by living it. When we say we’ll do something, they should be able to count on us to follow through.

It’s tough sometimes. It takes sacrifice (though not nearly as much as God has made for us). But remember the goal: Matthew 5:48. I call it the father’s motto: “[Become] ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”

Not only does our success here build a foundation for our children’s faith in God, it gives them a model to emulate. I’ve talked with my children about the importance of keeping your word. If I expect them to follow through with the things they say they will do, I have to make sure I’m setting the example.

One last thought about my promise to play soccer after getting home from work.

I recently attended the wedding of the daughter of one of my good friends. When he spoke at the reception, he brought me to tears as he reminisced about how, just yesterday, this radiant woman in white was his sweet little “pumpkin,” running to greet him when he got home from work.

I still have three of those pumpkins in my house. But, as my friend told me when we spoke afterward, just blink and they’re grown and gone.

“When my kids were growing up,” he said, “I always made sure I made time for them right when I came home from work. Every day, my son would greet me with a ball in his hand. ‘Dad—can we play?’ A lot of times I wouldn’t feel like it. But my wife reminded me, ‘You’d better take the opportunity while you’ve got it.’ So I always did. Even if it was for five minutes, I never told him no.”

Great advice. I know at least three children who deserve to be able to count on their dad like that.

]]>theTrumpet.comFri, 27 Feb 2015 06:00:00 +0100http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/8444.33666.136.0/society/family/keep-your-word20,000 Illegal Immigrants Cross Into Texas in Seven Weekshttp://tracking.feedpress.it/link/4298/590292
About 20,000 illegal immigrants have crossed into Texas since January 1. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told cbs’s Face the Nation on February 22, “Already this calendar year, since January 1, we have had more than 20,000 people come across the border, apprehended, unauthorized.”

Mr. Abbott also stated, “We all saw what happened on the Texas border last summer, but we need to understand that the problem is not going away.”

The governor is trying to secure the border by adding “more than 500 Department of Public Safety officers, more Texas Rangers, more technology.” Since the federal government has failed to secure the border with Mexico, the burden has fallen on the states.

But ultimately, as long as illegals feel that the welcome mat is out, they will continue to migrate from poorer countries.

Dozens of cities across America have embraced President Barack Obama’s amnesty program by organizing welcoming committees to help illegals adjust to life in the United States. The cities are working with a group called “Welcoming America” that helps illegals find employment and housing while “helping people who were born in this country understand and appreciate their new neighbors.”

“There is a movement sweeping the nation: Whole communities are coming together to create welcoming environments in which immigrant and long-term residents alike can thrive and prosper,” says the organization. Some of these welcoming cities include Chicago, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia and St. Louis. Conspicuously absent from the list are cities in border states that are most directly impacted by illegal immigration.

In the September 2014 Trumpet issue, Stephen Flurry wrote, “The flood of illegal immigrants highlights a fundamental disregard for law. It exposes and exacerbates the loss of a common culture. America’s inability to protect its borders shows that the very things that define the United States as a nation are being chipped away.”

To learn more about the repercussions of illegal immigration, read Stephen Flurry’s article “Borderline Breakdown.”

]]>Daryle HochstetlerFri, 27 Feb 2015 06:00:00 +0100http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/12446.33663.0.0/society/immigration/20000-illegal-immigrants-cross-into-texas-in-seven-weeksAnd Then There Were Tenhttp://tracking.feedpress.it/link/4298/590293
Read verses 12, 13 and 18 of Revelation chapter 17. This seemingly mysterious prophecy is speaking of a political power to rise in the end time: in Europe, 10 national groupings, under one overarching political leader, inspired by a single spiritual power.

Believe it or not, the euro crisis is stimulating the formation of this very scenario.

As Marko Papic of Stratfor observed, “It is important to understand that the crisis is not fundamentally about Greece or even about the indebtedness of the entire currency bloc. … [T]he real crisis is the more fundamental question of how the European continent is to be ruled in the 21st century” (June 28; emphasis added throughout).

The answer to that question has been embedded in the book of Revelation for almost two millennia.

It is now coming to fruition.

Since the great prophecies of Daniel and the Apostle John were revealed to Herbert Armstrong in the early phase of his ministry, we have understood that a postwar united Germany would emerge over time to lead a federation of European nations, comprising 10 regional national groupings under 10 individual leaders, under the dominating religious hegemony of Rome. That’s how the European Union will be ruled in the 21st century. The question that remains is, just how will that come about?

The Answer May Be Coming Clear

The Trumpet has carefully watched and regularly reported on developments in Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Our online archive at theTrumpet.com is filled with articles giving a blow-by-blow description of this emerging geopolitical phenomenon.

Now, the reality of the changing nature of the European Union is starting to be understood by the better observers of the European scene. One of the best, and one we often quote, is Stratfor. Marko Papic’s incisive analysis considers an extremely interesting prospect: that of European nations dividing into separate regional groupings.

European nations face intense economic pressure from the current euro crisis. At the same time, in today’s volatile world they see mounting threats to their own national security. The combination of their perceived need to elevate their defense capacity, along with their constricting capital and resources, is leading these nations to consider more seriously a novel solution: The EU could break up into regional battle groups centered around EU member nations having particular security interests in common.

Like many of the initiatives that EU elites have developed to further their imperialist dream, the battle groups concept has developed over time. Initially put forward at the December 1999 European Council summit in Helsinki and then launched in 2003, the concept entailed setting up rapid response regional battle groups of 1,500 personnel, deployable within 5 to 10 days. Fifteen such groups, both national and multinational, exist today.

The driving force behind the development of these battle groups is the Lisbon Treaty/European constitution. As a January 2010 European Union Security and Defense White Paper makes clear, the Lisbon Treaty demands that all EU countries improve their “military capabilities and put them at the service of the esdp/csdp”—that is, the European Security and Defense Policy (esdp), also known as the Common Security and Defense Policy (cdsp). Though seeds were sown for the creation of regional European battle groups a decade earlier, that treaty provided the impetus for them to evolve into “the creation of sub-regional armed forces” (ibid).

Political tensions within Europe are now accelerating this process. The combined forces of economic and financial crises, progressive invasion by immigrants, the creeping Islamization of European society, perceived security threats to its south resulting from this year’s “Arab Spring”—plus increasing disinterest in European affairs by its traditional military savior, the United States—have all combined to hasten the division of Europe into regional battle groups, enabling better field command and control among nations with common interests to protect.

But this process should not be viewed as the disintegration of the EU. Rather, it is but part of a continuing effort by European military elites who have one goal in mind: “The final goal is to put European armies within a harmonized framework” (ibid). Such a framework will involve what has become known as “networked security.” As the quoted white paper indicates, “EU armed forces in the 21st century should be able to defend EU member states’ interests. They have to be expeditionary and be sustainable, joint and interlocked with civilian crisis management.”

The paper’s authors comment that “To achieve this does not necessarily require significantly more financial resources, but political will.”

Does Europe have that “political will”?

Even a cursory glance at Europe today gives the impression that here is a continent of tremendous potential, of significant economic clout, being the single greatest trading entity in the world. Yet, as the dithering over the euro crisis demonstrates, the EU lacks that strong collective political will to realize the destiny its postwar founding fathers envisaged.

And Yet …

As Marko Papic rightly observed, “This is ultimately the source of the current sovereign debt crisis, the lack of political oversight over economic integration gone wrong. The eurozone’s economic crisis brought this question of Europe’s political fate into focus” (op. cit.).

This is why we at the Trumpet see the eurozone crisis as more of a catalyst to the fulfillment of the prophecies of Daniel and Revelation than the opposite.

Papic correctly asserts, “On the security front, we already have our answer: the regionalization of European security organizations. nato has ceased to effectively respond to the national security interests of European states. Germany and France have pursued an accommodationist attitude toward Russia, to the chagrin of the Baltic States and Central Europe. As a response, these Central European states have begun to arrange alternatives.” Note this! “The four Central European states that make up the regional Visegrad Group—Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary—have used the forum as the mold in which to create a Central European battle group. Baltic States, threatened by Russia’s general resurgence, have looked to expand military and security cooperation with the Nordic countries, with Lithuania set to join the Nordic Battlegroup, of which Estonia is already a member. France and the United Kingdom have decided to enhance cooperation with an expansive military agreement at the end of 2010, and London has also expressed an interest in becoming close to the developing Baltic-Nordic cooperative military ventures.

“Regionalization is currently most evident in security matters, but it is only a matter of time before it begins to manifest itself in political and economic matters as well.”

Europe is on course to divide into 10 distinct regional groupings, each under a dominant political leader, yielding their combined economic and military strength to one predominant imperial leader.

This is precisely what biblical prophecy directs us to be watching for within Europe today.

Positioned to Gain Control

The concept of Europe’s security and defense evolving into a strategy entailing a number of regional battle groups under a central command structure is not new. It is embraced and endorsed by the esdp, and enabled by the Lisbon Treaty/EU constitution; it came into being on Jan. 1, 2010. Although it cooperates with nato, the esdp falls under the jurisdiction of the EU. Under the Lisbon Treaty, the EU is empowered to develop a united military force supported by a consolidated European armaments industry.

An interesting development, however, occurred about the time the Lisbon Treaty was ready to pass—one that points to the future of how this military force will be directed.

Before the Lisbon Treaty was ratified, Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court determined that, unless a contrary law was enacted first, that treaty would strip the German parliament of its sovereign right to govern the deployment of German military forces. The court quickly acted to ensure that German law would override EU law. It determined that the Bundestag must have ultimate say as to whether the German Army participates in any EU military operation.

Germany is the only EU member nation to act to preserve this right.

The remarkable upshot of this trick is that Germany, alone of all EU member nations, can decide whether or not to support any military initiative put forward by other EU member nations. Since the EU member nations are bound by treaty to come to each other’s defense when faced with a security risk, no EU military action can proceed without the specific consent of the German parliament!

So, the effective deployment of any EU battle group must be ultimately at the behest of Germany!

What to Watch

What should we now watch for as German imperialist elites contemplate their next move?

Marko Papic observed that “Taxation is one of the most basic forms of state sovereignty, and one does not share it with countries that do not share one’s political, economic and security fate. … [T]he interests of the integrating states have to be closely aligned on more than just economic matters” (ibid).

There is an interesting phrase in the prophecy of Daniel that may indicate the prospect of fiscal union of the prophesied northern power (Daniel 11:20). That is certainly something to be watching for in the continuing wake of euro crisis contagion. Greece is the front-runner and test case for EU-German elites in their efforts to enact centralized control over budgetary and taxation matters in EU member states seeking bailouts.

But as Papic mused, “Control over budgets goes to the very heart of sovereignty, and European nations will not give up that control unless they know their security and political interests will be taken seriously by their neighbors. We therefore see Europe evolving into a set of regionalized groupings. … [R]egional organizations of like-minded blocs is the path that seems to be evolving in Europe, especially if Germany decides that its relationship with core eurozone countries and Central Europe is more important than its relationship with the periphery” (ibid).

It’s a feasible argument based on current observations, and certainly something to watch closely. Whether the regionalization of the European Union takes place according to such a pattern and under such conditions is uncertain.

However, one overarching fact remains clear. Bible prophecy foretells that this great northern power will be administered by 10 leaders led in turn by one outstandingly dominant leader, who will bring the combined economic, military and political power of that 10-group combine to the point that it will have devastating effect for a short time on the whole globe. This scenario certainly suggests regional groupings.

The dividing of EU military power into specific regional battle groups to more efficiently and rapidly project EU power beyond the Continent appears to align directly with the prophecies of Revelation 13, 17 and 18, especially when compared with the geopolitical considerations involving the great prophesied northern power in the book of Daniel. This then is also worth watching closely.

Yet, ultimately, current tensions in Europe will soon reach the point that will force the invitation of a prophesied charismatic political and military leader to come to the fore, no doubt with the backing of Europe’s most prominent and traditional spiritual guide, Rome (Daniel 11:21-34).

Until this happens, the degree of union within Europe required to bring this prophesied power to daily headline status will not occur. But it will happen, for the Scriptures cannot be broken! (John 10:35).

]]>Ron FraserThu, 26 Feb 2015 21:40:35 +0100http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/8441.33665.136.0/europe/european-union/and-then-there-were-tenHidden Time Bomb: Student Debthttp://tracking.feedpress.it/link/4298/590294
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York says more students are struggling to pay back their loans. At the end of 2014, student loan delinquencies (loans at least 90 days overdue) increased to 11.3 percent, up 0.2 percent from the previous quarter.

Today there is more than $1.3 trillion in outstanding student debt, and the average borrower owes $28,400 upon graduation, says the Project on Student Debt. Seven in 10 seniors who graduated from college in 2013 had student loan debt.

And much of that debt may be a time bomb waiting to explode.

In recent years, lawmakers have provided students with options that let them postpone repayment without triggering delinquency or default. And students have been availing themselves of those options like crazy.

One such option, called forbearance, allows students to ignore loans for up to three years. But at the end of the term the debt comes due—and with a nasty surprise for many: principal plus back interest for the forbearance period.

That is why the latest figures from the Education Department are so disturbing. Loan balances in forbearance were about 12.5 percent of the total in 2006. Today they are 16 percent—or approximately $125 billion worth of the total.

And none of these forbearance loans make it into the Federal Reserve Bank’s statistics on delinquencies. They are lying hidden, ready to explode and wipe out a massive chunk of a generation’s personal finances.

Is a college education worth it today? We would like to hear from you in the comment section below.

Trumpet columnist Stephen Flurry gave the answer in 2007: “Besides an Iranian bomb, the greatest threat to Israel’s existence is diminished support from its long-time ally, the United States.”

Now flash forward eight years since that was written. With the change in U.S. leadership came a significant transformation in the U.S.-Israel alliance. The deep bond that existed from the 1960s through George W. Bush’s administration is all but nonexistent today.

Recent events highlight this broken relationship and the incredible danger it represents to Israel. Israel’s two biggest threats are combining right now in a single action: nuclear negotiations.

The U.S.’s ongoing efforts to make a deal with Iran so that it gives up its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief has been a wedge driven deep into U.S.-Israel relations.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been one of the most vocal critics to a deal with Iran. This is understandable; Iran’s leaders call for Israel’s destruction on a near-daily basis. In the midst of nuclear negotiations in November 2014, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave a nine-point plan for destroying Israel.

But Israel’s opposition to a bad deal has only served to draw the ire and condemnation of the liberal government in Washington. U.S. President Barack Obama has been angered by Netanyahu’s criticism, seeing it as a countermand to over a year of negotiations.

Netanyahu has been accused of jeopardizing peace and misconstruing the facts of the deal. These accusations have come from Mr. Obama, his spokespeople and various levels within the current administration. Last week those allegations turned into action.

The White House openly admitted that it was keeping Israel in the dark on key facts about the nuclear deal. This move is not only a slap in the face of a long-standing alliance, it compromises Israel’s national security. This tiny nation in the Middle East has everything to lose if a deal is struck allowing Iran to continue its race for a nuclear weapon. Israel needs to know every minute detail so it can ascertain the threat posed by Iran. Keeping Israel “in the loop” would seem a logical courtesy for any close ally.

Nothing could be further from reality though today. Israel is kept in the dark while the U.S. speaks with Israel’s mortal enemy. The U.S. doesn’t perceive Iran as the threat that Israel does. Washington has been hoodwinked by the smiling Hassan Rouhani into believing Iran legitimately wants a deal.

The two biggest threats to Israel’s survival—nuclear Iran and a shattered U.S.-Israel alliance—are becoming reality before our eyes. And the current negotiations are only strengthening those threats.

Iran has always protested that its nuclear program is peaceful, and as such no aspects should be dismantled. That simply means that Iran won’t make a bomb today, but has the potential to do so tomorrow. Israel has always claimed that a bad deal would involve Iran retaining its entire infrastructure. We don’t know what details the U.S. is keeping from Israel, but whatever they are, Washington clearly believes they would upset Israel and bring more condemnation on the negotiations.

Israel’s Channel 10 sited unnamed officials who claim President Obama has already agreed to 80 percent of Iran’s demands. American compromises could leave Iran with a breakout capacity—the time needed to create a nuke—of just a few months. The less Israel knows about the details of the deal, the less accurate it can be in judging that breakout time to gauge an appropriate response.

Watch as this relationship between the U.S. and Israel continues to deteriorate as nuclear talks with Iran continue behind closed doors.

Netanyahu is scheduled to speak before the U.S. Congress in March and explain a few truths about the threats posed by Iran. But could it be too little too late? The current administration has already excluded Israel from the negotiations. And it now seems willing to forge ahead with a deal even if it risks placing Israel squarely in Iran’s nuclear crosshairs.

]]>Callum WoodThu, 26 Feb 2015 06:00:00 +0100http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/12444.33658.0.0/world/wmd/israel-kept-in-the-dark-during-nuclear-talksIran Blows Up Replica of U.S. Aircraft Carrierhttp://tracking.feedpress.it/link/4298/585087
On Wednesday, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps destroyed a replica of a United States aircraft carrier. The Iranian military group targeted the replica during a military drill near the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian state television showed footage of missiles striking the vessel. The missiles were fired from speedboats and from the coast. This was Iran’s first time to include a replica of a U.S. aircraft carrier in its military drills. The exercises also included shooting down a drone and planting undersea mines.

The Strait of Hormuz sees one fifth of the world’s seaborne oil transports. The Iranian Army also carried out naval drills near the strait in December.

Iran is currently negotiating a deal over its nuclear program with the U.S. and five other world powers. The U.S. had made many concessions to Iran, yet Wednesday’s military drill proves Iran’s hostile attitude toward the U.S. This is a strong indication of what Iran will do when it gains the military capabilities it seeks.

]]>theTrumpet.comWed, 25 Feb 2015 20:48:30 +0100http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/12447.33657.0.0/iran-blows-up-replica-of-us-aircraft-carrierSerbia Surrenders to Germanyhttp://tracking.feedpress.it/link/4298/584259
On Friday, April 19, Serbia finally stopped fighting and surrendered to Germany. It’s hard to blame it. Attacked by its historical allies and demonized in the public press the world over, Serbia had no hope of winning. Rather than defying the rest of the world, it decided to submit to Germany on the best terms it could get. This was the pragmatic path. Now Serbia is on its way to joining the European Union and being welcomed back into the fold of Western democracy.

The negotiations centered on northern Kosovo, which is mostly inhabited by Serbs who refused to submit to the breakaway government of Kosovo. These areas are currently under Serbia’s control, but the agreement reached on Friday turned control of these Serbian regions over to Kosovo. In return, the areas will be given a lot of self-government. For example, their police and judiciary would be made up mostly of ethnic Serbs, although they must still come under Kosovar structures.

The implications, however, reach far beyond Kosovo. As Toby Vogel of the European Voice put it, this “historic” agreement “grants ethnic Serbs sweeping autonomy within Kosovo in exchange for Serbia’s de facto recognition of Kosovo’s independence.” The Associated Press wrote, “In what would be an extraordinary change, the deal appeared to recognize the authority of the Kosovo government over the north of the country, which is inhabited predominantly by ethnic Serbs.”

That’s why this agreement is significant. Serbia has done a deal with Kosovo—or rather, with their backers in Germany and elsewhere—that offers some recognition of Kosovo’s independence. This may be the best deal it could possibly get, but it is still a deal. Serbian leaders are no longer refusing to offer any kind of recognition of Kosovo’s independence as a point of principle.

Many in Serbia, and many Serbs in Kosovo, are completely against this. In northern Kosovo, up to 10,000 took to the streets of Mitrovica on April 22, saying that the Serbs that signed the deal were “traitors.” Thousands more protested in Belgrade. The Serbian Orthodox Church strongly condemned it, calling it a “clear surrender” of “our most important territory.”

But the deal seems likely to be approved by Serbia’s parliament later this week. It has already been approved in Kosovo. The resistance of the Serbs in Kosovo might prevent it from going into effect, but that doesn’t change the fundamental point: The Serbian government is willing to compromise with Germany.

Why sign the deal? Serbia gets nothing from Kosovo—it’s just giving up control of its territory. This concession is only slightly mitigated by the Serbs in Kosovo getting self-government.

The answer lies with Germany and the European Union. The EU channels a lot of money into its poorer eastern members. Even before officially joining, candidate countries get money from the EU to help them get ready for membership. Serbia already gets some money from the EU, but to move further toward EU membership—and the money and help it needs to rebuild its economy—Serbia needs Germany’s approval.

Just a few days earlier, on April 16, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle gave Serbia a blunt ultimatum: “An agreement on starting negotiations on Serbia joining the EU, which it would like to see this summer, will be significantly delayed if it does not reach a deal with Kosovo.” Instead, Westerwelle threatened to allow Kosovo to progress toward EU membership without Serbia. He held Serbia fully responsible for the fact that a deal had not been negotiated already, and gave Kosovo a free pass.

Just three days later, Serbia gave Germany the deal Westerwelle wanted.

Serbia sold out to Germany. It’s hard to blame the Serbian government too much, after all that Serbia’s been through. Serbia was sold out by its former allies, the United States and Great Britain, years before. It may have seemed nobler to take arms against its sea of troubles, but it ultimately would have been a lost cause. Serbia has no hope of regaining Kosovo.

As the Trumpet has written often, Germany was behind nato’s takeover of the Balkans from the very beginning. Germany triggered the break-up of Yugoslavia. In a war like this, both sides do horrible things. Describing the behavior of both the Axis and the Allies, Winston Churchill wrote, “When all was over, torture and cannibalism were the only two expedients that the civilized, scientific, Christian states had been able to deny themselves: and they were of doubtful utility.”

Horrible things did happen in the Balkan wars. But the Western media focused only on the actions of the Serbs. nato bombed Kosovo in 1999, claiming to respond to Serbian genocide. Yet when Serbs were the victims of genocide and ethnic cleansing, the West remained silent. It was the Croats, not the Serbs, who were responsible for the largest ethnic cleansing of the Balkan wars, which occurred in Krajina in 1995. “Krajina,” wrote Charles Krauthammer, “was Kosovo writ large.” (For more on how the media demonized Serbia, see our article “What Really Happened in Bosnia.”)

Germany has won completely in the Balkans. There is no Yugoslavia—no risk of a united power that could challenge Germany in Eastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean. Instead, the area is divided and subject to the EU. Slovenia is already a part of the EU and Croatia is set to join in July. After Serbia bowed to Germany’s will, the European Commission recommended that the EU begin negotiations for Serbia’s membership on April 22. All the parts of what used to be Yugoslavia are on their way to being absorbed into the EU.

Just a few weeks ago, Germany got its way in Cyprus. Now the same thing is happening in Serbia. The means are very different. Their situations are very different. But Germany’s assertiveness and success are constant.

What happened in the Balkans is a powerful warning that Germany is rising. Britain and America need to take note. For more on this warning, read our booklet Germany’s Conquest of the Balkans.

]]>Richard PalmerWed, 25 Feb 2015 16:50:37 +0100http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/10565.33656.0.0/europe/serbia-surrenders-to-germanyWhat Really Happened in Bosniahttp://tracking.feedpress.it/link/4298/584260
It was genocide. Charles Krauthammer called it “the largest ethnic cleansing of the entire Balkan wars.” A March 1999 New York Times article agreed with him.

“Investigators with the war-crimes tribunal in the Hague have concluded that this campaign was carried out with brutality, wanton murder and indiscriminate shelling of civilians,” Krauthammer wrote (Time, April 5, 1999).

Is this the dreaded Srebrenica “massacre,” commonly referred to in the media as the “worst atrocity in Europe since the Second World War,” perpetrated by the “evil” Serbs led by Ratko Mladic, who has now been arrested to be brought to justice?

No. This genocide was carried out by the Croats—the “good guys”—and thus, it was encouraged and praised by the West.

The Krajina Massacre

The massacre Krauthammer was describing occurred in the region of Krajina in Croatia. Croatian troops forced an estimated 200,000 Serbs to flee (National Post, March 13, 2004).

“A war that begins with civilian areas being shelled at 5 a.m. when women and children are asleep in their beds and ends with a massive exodus of more than 100,000 people is surely tantamount to ethnic cleansing,” said UN spokesman Chris Gunness.

According to Robert Fisk, writing in the Independent, the European Union’s confidential assessment from Krajina in 1995 stated the following: “Evidence of atrocities; an average of six corpses per day, continues to emerge … the corpses; some fresh, some decomposed, are mainly of old men. Many have been shot in the back of the head or had throats slit, others have been mutilated. Isolated pockets of elderly civilians report people recently gone missing or detained .… Endless Croat invitations for Serbs to return, guarantees of citizens’ rights and property rights, etc., have gushed forth from all levels .… However, Serbian homes and lands … continue to be torched and looted.

“Contrary to official statements blaming it on fleeing Serbs and uncontrollable elements, the crimes have been perpetrated by the HV Croatian Army, the CR Croatian police and CR civilians. There have been no observed attempts to stop it, and the indications point to a scorched-earth policy.”

Two senior Canadian military officers present in Croatia at the time testified that the Croatians attacked indiscriminately and targeted civilians.

One of these officers, Maj. Gen. Andrew Leslie, estimated that around 500 civilians had been murdered. “In the hospital itself, there were bodies stacked in the corridors,” he said. “There were bodies in almost every hospital bed. And there were bodies lying in the foyer, the reception area and some of the corridors” (National Post, Dec. 9, 2005).

Yugoslav envoy Vladimir Pavicevic claimed that 15,000 Serbs were dead in Krajina, and that this total included slain refugees and soldiers who had already surrendered (Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Aug. 14, 1995). The International Committee of the Red Cross reported that 10,000 to 15,000 refugees were still missing over three weeks after the initial attack (Sun Herald, Aug. 27, 1995).

Why is Srebrenica everywhere, yet Krajina barely gets a mention? On April 15, Croatian Gen. Ante Gotovina was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (icty) for what he did in Krajina. It was hardly mentioned in the press. When Ratko Mladic was captured on May 26, it was all over the papers.

The double standard on display here is a monumental story—when you understand who, ultimately, was really behind it.

Manipulating the Media

Serbia’s earliest defeat came in the PR war. Early on, Serbia’s enemies engaged Ruder Finn, an American public relations firm, to get their message out. James Harff, director of Ruder Finn’s Global Public Affairs section, boasted about his success against Serbia.

“Nobody understood what was going on in (former) Yugoslavia,” he said in an October 1993 interview with French journalist Jacques Merlino. “The great majority of Americans were probably asking themselves in which African country Bosnia was situated.”

Ruder Finn took advantage of this ignorance. Its first goal was to persuade the Jews to oppose the Serbs—not an easy task. “The Croatian and Bosnian past was marked by a real and cruel anti-Semitism,” said Harff. “Tens of thousands of Jews perished in Croatian camps. So there was every reason for intellectuals and Jewish organizations to be hostile towards the Croats and Bosnians.”

Harff used a couple of reports in the New York Newsday about Serbian concentration camps to persuade Jewish groups to demonstrate against the Serbs. “This was a tremendous coup,” said Harff. “When the Jewish organizations entered the game on the side of the Bosnians, we could promptly equate the Serbs with the Nazis in the public mind.”

He continued: “By a single move, we were able to present a simple story of good guys and bad guys which would hereafter play itself. We won by targeting Jewish audience, the right target. Almost immediately there was a clear change of language in the press, with the use of words with high emotional content, such as ‘ethnic cleansing,’ ‘concentration camps,’ etc., which evoked inmates of Nazi Germany and the gas chambers of Auschwitz. The emotional change was so powerful that nobody could go against it.”

Western reporting of the Balkan wars became spectacularly biased. Consider the statements at the bottom of the page, most of which are from people who were actually in the Balkans during the wars.

Foreign Policy magazine reported, “Despite steady reports of atrocities committed there by Croatian soldiers and paramilitary units against Serbs, which some Belgrade correspondents were later able to confirm, the stories that reached the world talked only of Serb abuses .… In a three-month study of news reports, Howard University Professor of International Relations Nikolaos Stavrou detected ‘a disturbing pattern in news coverage.’ He claimed most of the stories were based on ‘hearsay evidence,’ with few attempts to show the ‘other side’s perspectives.’ Ninety percent of the stories originated in Sarajevo, but only 5 percent in Belgrade. Stavrou’s analysis cited ethnic stereotyping, with Serbs referred to as primitive ‘remnants of the Ottoman Empire’ and Yugoslav Army officers described as ‘orthodox communist generals’ … while newspaper photographs neglected to show suffering or dead Serbs or destroyed Serb churches and villages” (emphasis added throughout).

Foreign Policy pointed out that news outlets published many photos they said showed victims of Serbian persecution. But the captions were wrong. In many cases, the victims themselves were Serbs.

It is little wonder, then, that the events that took place in Srebrenica have been horribly twisted by the media. Yes, the Serbs killed Bosnian Muslims whom they had taken prisoner. But the context in which this occurred is vital to understanding this event.

The Truth About Srebrenica

The story portrayed in the media is that Bosnian Serbian forces under Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic invaded the UN “safe haven” of Sarajevo. Here they let the women, children and elderly escape before massacring all the men.

What is mentioned less often is that the Bosnian Muslims were using the UN “safe haven” as a base for attacks on Serbian civilians.

The UN admitted that Bosnian forces were violating the no-fly zone around Srebrenica and were smuggling weapons into the area (icty testimony by David Harland, civil affairs officer and political adviser to the unprofor commander in Bosnia and Herzegovina).

In charge of the Muslim forces in Srebrenica was Naser Oric. Here is how French Gen. Philippe Morillon, commander of the UN troops in Bosnia from 1992 to 1993, described him in his icty testimony: “Naser Oric engaged in attacks during Orthodox holidays and destroyed villages, massacring all the inhabitants. This created a degree of hatred that was quite extraordinary in the region .…”

In another part of his testimony, Morillon stated, “There were terrible massacres committed by the forces of Naser Oric in all the surrounding villages.”

He also stated: “I think you will find this in other testimony, not just mine. Naser Oric was a warlord who reigned by terror in his area and over the population itself. I think that he realized that those were the rules of this horrific war, that he could not allow himself to take prisoners. According to my recollection, he didn’t even look for an excuse. It was simply a statement: One can’t be bothered with prisoners.”

Naturally, Oric’s actions infuriated the Serbs. “They were in this hellish circle of revenge,” said Morillon. “It was more than revenge that animated them all. Not only the men. The women, the entire population was imbued with this. It wasn’t the sickness of fear that had infected the entire population of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the fear of being dominated, of being eliminated, it was pure hatred.”

It was this hatred and hunger for revenge that led to the Srebrenica massacre.

Continuing with his testimony, General Morillon stated that Oric pulled out of Srebrenica a week before it fell. “I said that Mladic had entered an ambush in Srebrenica, a trap, in fact. He expected to find resistance, but there was none. He didn’t expect the massacre to occur but he completely underestimated the amount of hatred that accrued. I don’t believe that he ordered the massacres, but I don’t know. That is my personal opinion.”

The Serbs finally reacted to Oric’s provocations: When they took Srebrenica far more easily than they thought they would, they took their revenge on the men they found there. But, unlike Oric, they let the women and children go.

When asked by the judge if what the Serbs did in Srebrenica was a natural reaction to what happened under Oric, Morillon answered: “Yes. Yes, Your Honor. I am convinced of that. This doesn’t mean to pardon or diminish the responsibility of the people who committed that crime, but I am convinced of that, yes.”

The full context presents a very different picture of Srebrenica. It was not a cold-hearted, Nazi-style final solution for Bosnian Muslims. Instead it was a crime of passion—still a crime, but one provoked by crimes on the other side.

Morillon still held Mladic responsible for what happened in Srebrenica because he didn’t follow through on international agreements made two years earlier. But there is a big difference between a military leader who doesn’t trust the other side enough to make peace and, say, an Adolf Eichmann.

“All the horrors of all the ages were brought together, and not only armies but whole populations were thrust into the midst of them,” wrote Winston Churchill after World War i. “The mighty educated states involved conceived—not without reason—that their very existence was at stake. Neither peoples nor rulers drew the line at any deed which they thought could help them to win. Germany, having let hell loose, kept well in the van of terror; but she was followed step by step by the desperate and ultimately avenging nations she had assailed. Every outrage against humanity or international law was repaid by reprisals—often of a greater scale and of longer duration.”

“When all was over, torture and cannibalism were the only two expedients that the civilized, scientific, Christian states had been able to deny themselves: and they were of doubtful utility,” concluded Churchill.

Does his description of World War i sound any different from what happened in Srebrenica? That doesn’t make it right, of course. But the real blame for Srebrenica lies with those who started the war.

Who Started the War?

Western media blame the “evil” Serbs for causing war by trying to grab as much territory as they could while Yugoslavia fell apart. The facts show a different picture.

Lord Peter Carrington, former chairman of the peace conference on Yugoslavia, stated that the actions of the U.S., Germany and certain other European governments “made it sure there was going to be a conflict” in the region.

The European Community (precursor to the EU) was almost unanimous in agreeing that the best way to avoid a war in Yugoslavia was for it to remain one nation. Member states voted 11 to 1 in 1991 to support a resolution stating that “the best way of achieving stability in the Balkans was for Yugoslavia to remain united, albeit in a revised, looser federal form.”

The one ended up overruling the 11.

Here’s how T.W. “Bill” Carr, associate publisher of Defense and Foreign Affairs’ Strategic Policy, described what happened: “Germany, despite its current problems, remains the strongest economy in Europe. During the Maastricht negotiations, a reunited Germany used that power to further what appeared to be its historical strategic objective to control the territories of Croatia, Slovenia and Dalmatia, with their access to the Adriatic and Mediterranean.

“During protracted negotiations, Germany wore down the other EC members and eventually, at 0400 hours on the morning of the debate, the 11:1 vote to hold Yugoslavia united turned into a unanimous vote to recognize Croatia as an independent state on the grounds that the right to self-determination overruled all other criteria.”

“In order to maintain its own unity, the EC sacrificed the unity of Yugoslavia, and with it, the stability of the Balkans,” Carr wrote.

This was more than merely the EC trying to preserve unity. In reality, it was a stunning example of Germany bullying its own way and forcing the rest of Europe to fall in step.

“Germany had won round one,” Carr continued. “Shortly after, Germany won round two when Bosnia-Herzegovina was also recognized, despite EC negotiator Lord Carrington’s advice that such a step would result in a civil war.”

America, too, allowed itself to be led by Germany into pushing Yugoslavia into civil war.

But Germany wasn’t alone. Carr wrote, “The German/Croatian axis and expansionist Islam are the key players in the region, along with the very real interest and role played by the Vatican and the Croatian Catholic Church.”

These forces conspired to cause a war in Yugoslavia so Germany could regain its influence in the Balkans.

Here’s how Karadzic made his case in a recent interview for Politics First: “The Germans wanted to take revenge on Yugoslavia for its involvement in World Wars i and ii on the side of the anti-German coalition; to support their allies in Slovenia and Croatia as well as the Bosnian Muslims; and to secure strategic access for themselves through Slovenia and Croatia to the Adriatic Sea, as it had a preference for a group of small countries in the European Union instead of a big one” (May 2011).

That is the reality behind the wildly uneven treatment the Croats and Serbs received from the rest of the world. It had its genesis in the German-Vatican plot to smash Yugoslavia to pieces, particularly to eliminate the Serbian threat that created problems in the previous world wars!

The Germans aggressively backed Serbia’s enemies. In 1996, the German tv program Monitor unearthed evidence of German intelligence agents smuggling weapons to the Bosnian Muslims. Operating under the guise of neutral EU monitors, Germany smuggled arms to Serbia’s enemies. Other monitors confirmed that German EU monitors made these shipments through Croatia and Bosnia.

On Feb. 27, 1997, Monitor reported that the mig-21 airplanes used by the Croatian Air Force “demonstrably came from Germany, were given a complete overhaul in the former Soviet Union and delivered to Croatia via Hungary.” The program also stated, “Combat helicopters, tanks, artillery—many of the weapons that decided the outcome of the war—had been delivered with the help of the bnd [Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service], according to information of the American Defense Intelligence Service (dia). This is also confirmed by the internationally acknowledged military expert Paul Beaver.”

The Aug. 11-25, 1995, issue of Intelligence Digest stated that German pilots trained the Croatian Air Force.

The February 1997 Monitor program also stated, “Without the German intelligence service, the smuggling could not have been accomplished.” The allegations caused an uproar in the German parliament, but as Britain’s Telegraph reported, “For many German politicians, however, the nub of the problem may not be the bnd’s operations at all—rather that it appears to have been caught out” (April 20, 1997).

Crucially, German and U.S. help won the Croats the media war. Little Croatia and Bosnia could not have won over the entire Western media without help. Sanctions placed on Yugoslavia meant it was unable to hire Western PR firms. Serbia’s enemies were able to get their message out unopposed.

“The media,” Karadzic stated, “did more damage to us than nato bombs.”

Just the Beginning

As horrific as the events in the Balkans were, they are just the start of an even bigger, far worse conflict. As Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry writes in his booklet The Rising Beast—Germany’s Conquest of the Balkans, “Yugoslavia is in fact the first victim of World War iii.”

“The first blow of World War iii has already been struck,” he writes. “That is because this same nation—Germany—will continue this aggressive war spirit until the whole world is dragged into a nuclear World War iii! So says history and Bible prophecy.”

War means events like the Krajina ethnic cleansing, and Srebrenica. As Churchill described, war means man unleashes all the destructive forces he has available. Today, man has more destructive power at his fingertips than ever before.

The truth is that Bosnia is already a victim of World War iii.

]]>Richard PalmerWed, 25 Feb 2015 16:49:58 +0100http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/8446.33655.136.0/europe/balkans/what-really-happened-in-bosniaMayor of Jerusalem Takes Down Terroristhttp://tracking.feedpress.it/link/4298/584725
The surveillance footage is dramatic. Crowds frantically dispersing away from a knife-wielding terrorist after he punctures his victim. Moments later, one man enters the frame boldly striding through the human traffic toward the attacker, his contrasting white dress shirt somehow presaging the following act of heroism. Two bodyguards flank the man, yet even they are one step behind. Then, in the middle of the intersection, the three men confront the assailant with a gun drawn. The terrorist drops the knife, and like a lion pouncing on its prey, the mayor of Jerusalem tackles the terrorist to the pavement.

The video was recorded on Sunday afternoon at one of the busiest intersections in Jerusalem, just outside the northwest corner of the Old City. Sunday being a normal workday in Israel, Mayor Nir Barkat was driving to his office for a meeting. Moments before they arrived at city hall, his driver noticed a commotion. Immediately, Barkat got out of the vehicle with his bodyguards and moved toward the scene.

It took a mere 17 seconds from the time the knife plunged into the back of the Abraham Goldstein, the Jewish victim, to when Barkat first enters the frame pacing defiantly toward the attacker.

While Barkat had a security outfit with him, there is no doubt from the footage who led the charge to the attacker. As Barkat later recounted, this was an act of sheer intuition.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwLZv9YxkFo

Mayor Nir Barkat takes down terrorist.

“In moments like these, facing a terrorist, you act mainly by intuition and do what anyone would be expected to do—take out the terrorist,” wrote the mayor in Israel Hayom on Monday. Later, he wrote, “Anyone who tries to attack us will pay dearly. You can’t hesitate in the face of terrorism.”

Moments after neutralizing the attacker, Barkat scanned the environment to see if there were other threats in the area. Deeming it safe, he was the first to attend to the victim, who was attacked for no reason apart from his being a Jew. Putting his arms around Abraham Goldstein, Barkat brought him to the sidewalk and sat with him as they waited for the emergency services to arrive.

Certainly, Mayor Barkat’s six-year term in the Israel Defense Forces as a paratrooper educated him on how to take down terrorists, and even hardened him to the reality of death and war. However, this was a public servant who took his oath to serve the public of Jerusalem seriously, even putting himself in harm’s way.

Truly, the action of Jerusalem’s mayor on Sunday is one of the most heroic achievements by a public servant in recent memory.

This was not the first time Nir Barkat was personally confronted with a terrorist attack. Eleven years ago, to the very day of Sunday’s attack, Barkat witnessed a Jerusalem bus explode on the street adjacent to Liberty Bell Park. In his words, “I stopped my car and ran like crazy toward it, among the dead and wounded.” He found a young lady losing a lot of blood and used his hands to stop the flow before emergency services arrived.

Again, Nir Barkat intuitively ran toward the attack to help in any way he could.

In an age when some Western officials promote a strategy of “leading from behind” or “strategic patience” in the face of evil, Mayor Barkat’s actions to protect and lead from the front are refreshing.

Certainly, every public official does not need to face down a terrorist to be considered a leader. But every leader should care more for those he governs than for himself. And this habitual selflessness should develop to the point that it becomes intuitive as it has with Nir Barkat.

Seldom do democratic elections in Israel result in the incumbent returning to power. However, with the Jerusalem municipal elections in 2013, it seems the public made the right choice. You may disagree with his politics, even his strategies, but when a leader puts his own life at risk to serve his people, he is easy to follow.

]]>Brent NagtegaalWed, 25 Feb 2015 15:14:54 +0100http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/12445.33654.0.0/mayor-of-jerusalem-takes-down-terroristNo More Taboos for the German Armyhttp://tracking.feedpress.it/link/4298/582721
The year 1993 was pivotal for the German military. Germany established its armed forces in 1956, but memories of two world wars meant that they were restricted to defensive operations within nato territory.

In 1991, this slowly began to change. Thirty German soldiers deployed in Baghdad, Iraq, to help with airlift operations. The next year, 150 medics were sent with a United Nations mission to Cambodia.

The first substantial foreign mission came in 1993, with over 2,000 military personnel deploying to Somalia as UN peacekeepers. The same year, German soldiers joined in aerial operations over Yugoslavia.

The world had no problems with these operations. In fact, the UN and United States desperately wanted the German Army to do more, but to many Germans, this was too much. Germany’s main left-wing party, the Social Democratic Party (spd), and the free-market Free Democratic Party (fdp) complained to the German Constitutional Court that these deployments violated Germany’s Basic Law—its constitution.

In July 1994, the court released its final conclusion. The German military could get involved in conflicts outside of Europe, but only on two important conditions: The missions must be approved by the German parliament; and they must be part of some kind of collective security arrangement—such as the UN or nato. The argument was that the German Constitution allows the nation to take part in collective defense groups, therefore, Germany must be able to meet the commitments that go with joining such an arrangement.

Since 1994, every German military deployment has complied with these conditions. That ruling provided the legal basis that allowed the German military to aid the breakup of Yugoslavia, fight in Afghanistan, and deploy in Africa. For 20 years, Germany has not been allowed to send in its army on its own initiative—it could only do so when called upon by the UN, nato or the European Union. Until now.

The German parliament effectively dispensed with that condition on January 29, when it voted to deploy up to 100 soldiers to help train the Kurds in northern Iraq. There is no nato, UN or EU mission in Kurdistan. It’s a small beginning, but it sets an important precedent.

U.S. President Barack Obama recognized the significance of this decision. “In a significant milestone in its foreign policy, Germany has taken the important step of equipping Kurdish forces in Iraq, and Germany is preparing to lead the training mission of local forces in Erbil,” he said at a press conference following a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on February 9.

The German Defense Ministry claims the decision complies with the 1994 court ruling, but if it’s right, it stretches that ruling so far as to make it meaningless. The basis for this claim is that other nations are involved in combat operations in Iraq and that the UN has issued a resolution on the subject of Islamic terrorists in Iraq.

UN resolution 2170 (2014) does indeed discuss terrorists in Iraq, but it calls for nations to “act to suppress the flow of foreign fighters, financing and other support to Islamist extremist groups in Iraq and Syria.” It does not authorize military force, nor is it a request to set up a UN mission. If all it takes for German military action is a UN resolution on vaguely the same subject as the country in question, and a few allies, then there are no real restrictions on the use of Germany’s armed forces.

The Defense Ministry’s argument is so tenuous that the research service of the German parliament rejected it. The experts point out that the current mission is not “within the framework and according to the rules” of the UN and that the group of nations involved are not a system of collective security.

The research service, however, put forward an alternative argument. The Basic Law allows the German military to be used for “defense.” It does not say “for the defense of Germany”—so the research service argues that the new mission may be legal because it is for the purposes of defense—in this case, the defense of the Kurds.

Again, if this definition is allowed to stretch this far, it seems hard to imagine what military action it would not permit. Just about every war in the history of mankind could be construed as being in defense of someone.

Swen Schulz, a member of the spd who broke with his party to vote against the deployment, reached the same conclusion. “The mandate is a further step to militarize German foreign policy,” he warned.

“The fight against [the Islamic State] has a good purpose,” he continued. “But, if the mandate goes through, a future government could justify quite different operations with a similar weak constitutional basis.”

Outside of Germany, the removal of this last restraint on German military deployments has received almost no attention. Britain and America have no interest in German military restraint—instead, like Mr. Obama, even those who have commented on this news welcome it.

Within Germany, it has been discussed more widely and, in some cases, criticized. But it is far less controversial than the last time a military taboo was broken back in 1993. This time the spd won’t be taking the case to the constitutional court—it supported it. Even the usually pacifist Greens merely abstained. The military mission was approved with 457 votes in favor, 79 against.

This broad support means that even if the court were to rule this unconstitutional, the genie would still be out of the bottle—the governing coalition has enough votes to simply change the Constitution.

Confirming the German government’s dedication to forge a new path for military, Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen announced that her ministry was working on a new white paper for the department—a paper that would outline a future for the German Army with “no taboos.” These white papers, released every few years, set the overall policy for the German military. The last was published in 2006; this one will be released next year.

“Just last year our willingness to act concerning German security policy has changed substantially,” von der Leyen said as she launched the white-paper discussions. “Our strategic culture is changing.”

Germany’s military policy “cannot be a rigid plan of action” or “a checklist of foreign missions,” she announced. As for Germany’s international commitments, there would be “no pressure to act, but also, no taboos.”

There it is, in black and white. The last restraints imposed upon the German military after World War ii are now being shaken off.

To the world outside Germany, it’s no big deal. It’s not even covered in the English-language press.

But Germany’s history should at least cause us to pause and think about this. After all, in the grand scheme of things, World War ii is still recent history.

Yes, it seems unfair to hold the actions of an earlier generation of people over the heads of modern Germans—actions that today’s generation had no control over. Germany’s geography alone naturally gives it a dominant position within Europe, and that geography has not changed.

We assume that history does not apply today, that wars and mass bloodshed are a thing of the past. We’re sophisticated now—those things are impossible, we think.

The tv news service Tagesschau commented that we’re moving into “uncharted territory” for Germany’s Constitution. But we’re also moving into uncharted territory for modern Germany. We’ve never seen modern Germany with a military free of taboos. One could argue that we need to move into this territory and that Germany deserves another chance. But in that case, surely we should enter this new territory with eyes wide open? Instead, this new Germany is emerging, and Britain and America couldn’t care less.

The Trumpet, however, has been warning for years of what this new territory contains. To read more about this warning from history, read our free booklet Germany and the Holy Roman Empire.

]]>Richard PalmerWed, 25 Feb 2015 06:00:00 +0100http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/12443.33651.0.0/world/military/no-more-taboos-for-the-german-armyDo You Ignore Reality?http://tracking.feedpress.it/link/4298/579498
It is easy today to look back on the 1930s and marvel at Britain’s failure to take action to escape the calamity that was brewing in Europe. To think that if you were alive in the 1930s you would have read the signs and responded differently. If you think this way, though, you don’t understand human nature.

As each year passed in the 1930s, evidence showing that a massive catastrophe was inevitable became ever more plenteous and irrefutable. There were Hitler’s munitions factories; his steadily growing army; the führer’s own promises.

In March 1935, Hitler formally rejected the Treaty of Versailles. He announced the formation of the German Luftwaffe (air force) and conscription for all German youth. Winston Churchill warned that Hitler was putting Germany on a war footing. Despite the evidence, Britain slumbered.

Hitler invited British government officials to Berlin. He told them that the Reich had “reached parity with Great Britain as far as their respective air forces were concerned.” In fact, Hitler had been misinformed; he had overestimated the strength of the Royal Air Force by about 50 percent. Germany’s air force was actually much larger than Britain’s! Even once the disparity was revealed, however, the British remained apathetic.

On March 7, 1936, 22,000 German soldiers marched under the cover of fog and darkness into the Rhineland; by noon the military coup was complete. Hitler announced that he had “reestablished … the absolute and unrestricted sovereignty of the Reich in the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland.” Britain cringed—and did nothing.

In 1938, the Reich was again on the move. On March 11, while the German foreign minister was lunching with British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in London, German soldiers closed the border at Salzburg and began amassing troops along the frontier. Three days later, Hitler swallowed Austria. The British government, media and people trembled—and again fell back to sleep!

The night of Nov. 9, 1938, the world and German Jews in particular got another taste of what Hitler had in store. The number of acts of pillaging, rape and murder of Jews the night of Kristallnacht in unknown, but at the time it was the greatest pogrom in history. Yet, though Germany’s Jews were terrified, most chose to keep living in the jaws of the beast that would eventually devour them!

Soon it was apparent that Hitler had set his gaze on Czechoslovakia. By the end of 1938, the Sudetenland region had fallen to the German maw. By the following March, he had successfully devoured all of Czechoslovakia.

Finally in the spring of 1939, after years of Hitler churning out weapons, breaking treaties, invading neighbors and killing Jews, Britain began to muster a meaningful response. Even then, it wasn’t until Germany invaded Poland that September that all of Britain was convinced beyond question that war was upon them!

Years later, we look back and marvel at the stunning failure of Britain and the West to recognize the menace of Nazi Germany. We wonder that despite all evidence, they never took the threat seriously enough to respond with vigorous, meaningful actions—actions that might have prevented the calamity!

We marvel. But we are no different.

Consider the U.S. economy, for example. Signs abound that America is headed for a financial collapse of historic magnitude. The dollar is plunging in value. The national debt is almost 100 percent of gross domestic product. The U.S.’s biggest creditors are threatening to call in its loans; the Federal Reserve is creating fiat money out of thin air because America can’t find lenders. Russia, China, India, France and Germany all want a new reserve currency. Unemployment is stuck above 9 percent. Foreclosures are at or near historic highs, and banks are still taking people’s homes. One in seven Americans rely on food stamps to keep their children fed. Yet how many people are responding in a meaningful way?

Worldwide, commodity prices are rocketing: Oil is up over 50 percent from a year ago; oats and wheat more than 70 percent; silver, coffee and cotton over 100 percent. Food prices have risen 40 percent over the past year and are expected to go much higher. Today more than a billion people are undernourished.

Large-scale nature-related disasters are increasing. Across the planet, floods, droughts, earthquakes, wildfires and tornadoes are unleashing devastating violence on populated cities and key agricultural regions. At the same time, our world is filled with political unrest and upheaval, with government corruption and incompetence, with religious tension and wars. Inside our nations, daily news feeds reveal that once-stable societies are falling into lawlessness and violence. Gangs of rampaging teenagers are terrorizing neighborhoods. Unthinkable crimes are increasingly common. Racial and ethnic tensions are intensifying.

These are signs that our world is in a desperate state! Yet how many are responding in a meaningful way?

In 1935 Churchill, troubled by Britain’s apathy, stood before the House of Commons and attempted to shake the nation from its stupor. “When the situation was manageable it was neglected, and now it is thoroughly out of hand,” he warned. “There is nothing new in the story. It is as old as the Sibylline books. It falls into that long dismal catalog of the fruitlessness of experience and the confirmed unteachability of mankind. … Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusion of counsel until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong—these are the features which constitute the endless repetition of history.”

Seventy-six years later, Churchill’s warning applies even more! Chances are, you are making this very mistake.

But you can learn from this history. There are specific actions you can take to avoid the many and inevitable calamities that the evidence, and Bible prophecy, prove are coming upon this world. “Watch ye therefore, and pray always,” Christ says in Luke 21, “that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.” Jesus Christ promises divine protection from these terrible disasters! To receive it, you must be vigilantly seeking God, continually watching the fulfillment of Bible prophecy and faithfully drawing close to God through prayer and Bible study. God says if you do this—if you put Him, His law and His work first—then He will provide a way of escape!

]]>Brad MacdonaldTue, 24 Feb 2015 06:00:00 +0100http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/8541.33650.137.0/britain/do-you-ignore-realityLampedusa and the Islamic State's War on Romehttp://tracking.feedpress.it/link/4298/579499
Lampedusa. The name may not mean much to you, but to hundreds of thousands of African refugees—and to the entire continent of Europe—Lampedusa can mean the difference between life and death.

As Italy’s southernmost territory, the small island of Lampedusa has become the front line in the Islamic State’s war on Rome.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of refugees climb into makeshift barges and overcrowded rafts, and attempt the perilous crossing from Libya to either Lampedusa or Sicily.

The journey is not without risk. Last year 3,500 deaths were recorded, and with resources stretched so thin, it’s likely many more drowned in the Mediterranean unaccounted for. The high death toll makes this crossing the most dangerous in the world.

Yet for all those who die, far more are making the journey successfully, slipping into Italy, and settling there or continuing on deeper into the Continent.

And the numbers are astounding. Italian authorities and merchant vessels rescued more than 2,800 people in at least 18 boats between the 13th and 15th of February this year. On the 15th alone, 2,225 people were rescued.

With the unrest in Libya, these massive immigration numbers are set to increase. The United Nations Refugee Agency (unhcr) said it expects the numbers to stay high. Some 218,000 immigrants crossed into Italy in 2014. But January saw a 60 percent increase for incoming registered migrants compared to the same time last year.

However, it is the unregistered migrants that pose the greatest threat.

Last year an investigation into Sicilian immigration found that “in 2014 there were 170,816 immigrants into Italy,” and of those, “only 66,066 are registered.” That leaves 104,750 illegal migrants unaccounted for somewhere in Italy—or possibly deeper in Europe.

One can hardly blame the tens of thousands who attempt the journey. With the Islamic State and other radical Islamic groups butchering people across Libya, the sea crossing is worth the risk. But there is a real danger that hidden among the flock of migrants are wolves.

With so many immigrants crossing to Italy, the likelihood is high that radicals are slipping into mainland Europe unnoticed.

In an interview with Bloomberg Business, Nicoletta Pirozzi, a senior research fellow at the Institute for International Affairs in Rome, said, “From a strategic point of view, Libya is crucial for Italy. It’s an energy security issue, it’s a immigration and internal security issue, and it’s fast becoming a terrorism issue, with direct threats leveled at it.”

The opportunity for terrorists to reach the heart of Italy is a real and present danger. And the Islamic State has no qualms about letting the world know its intentions to carry out such an attack.

Islamic State leader Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi has made numerous threats to wage a war against Rome. In video and audio recordings, he calls on all Muslims to return to their homeland, from where they can launch their offensive against “the nation of the cross.”

The final moments of the Islamic State’s gruesome video of the decapitation of 21 Coptic Christians are punctuated by the call for war against Rome.

Sending fighters amidst the sea of refugees would be one way for the Islamic State to achieve its goal.

The Islamic State has also proclaimed that it will inundate Italy with refugees to “turn it into hell.” The longer people attempt to flee North Africa, the more crippling and devastating the immigration crisis will be for Europe.

To defend against the wolves within the flock, Italy has increased security measures, particularly in Rome. Italy has also pledged 5,000 troops to a UN mandate that would take the fight to the Islamic State in Libya.

However, these measures are not designed to stop the refugees. As long as the dangers of the sea crossing are outweighed by the dangers posed in Libya, the boats will continue, and the risk of terrorists slipping in will remain.

And the violence doesn’t look to be abating any time soon. Italy closed its embassy in Tripoli on February 15 due to security concerns. There are firefights in and around the capital. The nation is effectively fragmented into tribal regions with an array of radical groups all vying for power and dominance.

Italy’s and Europe’s safety will only come when their southern borders are secured.

According to intelligence analysts, Italy has “never been so exposed.” What Europe needs, and what it is looking for, is a strong hand from someplace. “Extraordinary engagement” is necessary according to Paolo Gentiloni, Italy’s minister of foreign affairs. It also requires “greater accountability.”

As the former colonial power in Libya, Italy would likely play a key role in any future military action taken by Europe in Libya.

And the Vatican could play a powerful role in galvanizing popular support. Following the beheadings, Pope Francis said: “The blood of our Christian brothers and sisters is a testimony which cries out to be heard. It makes no difference whether they be Catholics, Orthodox, Copts or Protestants. They are Christians! Their blood is one and the same.”

The pope believes that the butchering of 21 Coptic Christians should rally the Christian community around the world. But rally them against what? To do what?

Radical Islam is directly threatening the Catholic Church and Europe today in a way unseen since the Muslim Aghlabids used what is modern-day Tunisia to launch raids into Italy, leading to the sacking of Rome and St. Peter’s Basilica in a.d. 846. The blood of the Catholic Church’s “brothers” in Egypt and Libya is being spilled into the Mediterranean again today. How long before it reaches Lampedusa or further?

Whatever happens next in Libya, the nation’s potential as a deadly backdoor into Europe has been exposed. Italy and the Vatican are now dealing with the dangers posed by radical Islam. Don’t expect Europe to allow that back door to remain open much longer. For more information, read Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry’s May 2011 article titled “An Islamic Takeover of Libya and Ethiopia Is Imminent.”

]]>Callum WoodTue, 24 Feb 2015 06:00:00 +0100http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/12438.33648.0.0/world/terrorism/lampedusa-and-the-islamic-states-war-on-romeThree Misconceptions About Bible Prophecyhttp://tracking.feedpress.it/link/4298/575758
Throughout the ages, a lot of people have said they believe the Bible. Are you part of that group? Did you know one third of this holy book consists of prophecy?

The most-read book in world history is largely prophecy, a concept you might associate more with apocalyptic movies, mystical books and crazy street preachers, and not with serious thought.

Consider the Bible’s table of contents. Out of the 66 books, 18 are named after prophets. Other books contain numerous prophecies. Matthew, for example, contains the Olivet prophecy, which talks about the four horsemen. Genesis contains prophecies about Israel inheriting the Promised Land. 1 Samuel contains prophecies of Jesus Christ and His reign over the Earth. And who can forget the book of Revelation, which is essentially a book about prophecy?

A lot of intelligent people believe in God. Many of them even give the Bible a serious reading. But when this book claims to predict the future, many people reject it outright or skip over to the part about the love of Jesus.

But Jesus Himself was a prophet. So any honest reading of the Holy Bible has to answer this unavoidable question: Is Bible prophecy real?

This magazine takes the whole Bible, including prophecy, and applies it to world events. Few other media use Bible prophecy as a criterion for anything. That sounds outlandish to them.

Have you ever looked into Bible prophecy? Really studied it? If this Book of books predicts that a certain nation will be ruled by a certain administration and will experience a certain fate—and then all of those things happen—that changes everything. If Bible prophecy is true, especially if it’s true time after time after time without a miss, then an objective mind has to admit: Someone with God-level powers must have inspired the Holy Bible.

Fulfilled prophecy proves that the Bible is God’s Word. The only question is, has Bible prophecy been fulfilled?

You need to take an honest look at all the facts and prove whether Bible prophecy is real or if it’s a strange collection of wild ideas.

A Message for Today

Prophecy is a more serious and reasoned subject than you might initially perceive. Although the Bible encodes it rather than listing it out like a textbook, it is designed to be understood by those to whom God reveals it.

Bible prophecy was written in ancient lifetimes using ancient names for the predecessors of modern nations. One of these ancient identities unlocks prophecy, because every Old and New Testament prophecy revolves around it in some way: the nation of Israel. You can examine the modern identity of ancient Israel by requesting a free copy of our book The United States and Britain in Prophecy (or read our article “America’s Lost Identity”).

If God is real, and if the Bible is His Word, and if God preserved numerous prophecies for us today, then there is definitely a message in those prophecies we need to understand. And God does make that understanding available! If you want to prove Bible prophecy for yourself, request a free copy of History and Prophecy of the Middle East. This booklet proves one of the most detailed and wide-ranging prophecies in the Bible. It’s completely free; you have nothing to lose.

1. Prophets are crazy

Just the word “prophecy” evokes images of doomsday quacks and conspiracy theorists or, at best, shamans who can mysteriously predict or control the future through a blend of practicing mystical arts, studying the stars and/or divining the secrets of ancient books.

But read the Bible, and you’ll see what the prophets were like. They weren’t charlatans, nor were they born into some prophet caste. Many of them didn’t even want the job. “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy [Spirit]” (2 Peter 1:21).

Moses and Isaiah both protested being used as prophets. Ezekiel was a slave; Daniel was a captive-turned-high-official; Jeremiah was a young priest; Amos was a herdsman. Jonah outright ran away from the job at first. The one common factor among the dozens of prophets in the Bible is that God drafted them and commissioned them to deliver a message.

The Old Testament word for prophet is nabi, which means “one who announces or brings a message from God.” Biblical prophets often delivered unpopular messages drawing significant persecution. Sometimes it even cost them their lives.

Is Bible prophecy true? If it was invented by an assortment of street-corner doomsday preachers—or even by the most intelligent men in history—you could dismiss the concept entirely. No human being can predict the future. But if it was delivered by a range of individuals whose only significant commonality was that they obeyed a higher power, then the subject bears more scrutiny.

2. Bible prophecy is for old times

According to the Bible, prophets received messages from God and then delivered those messages orally or recorded them—often both. But if they finished the job by delivering the message, why write it down? Why have those messages been preserved for millennia?

It’s not just because these are historical case studies in which inspired men said that something would happen and then it did. There’s another, much more important reason these books were preserved.

A closer look at some of the prophets shows that their prophecies were aimed at a later period, far beyond their lifetimes. For example, the Bible says God gave Ezekiel prophecies about the house of Israel. But Israel had already been conquered and carried away captive by Assyria over 100 years prior. Ezekiel himself was a Jewish captive in Babylon. He never delivered his message to Israel. Why did God give him the message then?

The Bible provides the answer: It is because the prophecy remains to be fulfilled. This would mean God wrote and preserved advance news not only for the ancients, but for current world news! Revelation 1:1 claims that this is exactly the case. Daniel 12:9 specifically says that prophecy is for “the time of the end.” If the Bible is true, many prophecies are so much more than ancient predictions that have come and gone. If you piece them all together, the picture that emerges is that they are, in fact, advance warnings of what will happen in our lifetimes!

3. Bible prophecy equals doomsday prophecy

The third misconception is the one that pops immediately to many people’s minds when they hear the word prophecy. They envision the state of affairs when prophecies actually do come true: mass destruction. There is a reason for this—but is a heads-up for doomsday the only reason for Bible prophecy?

The Bible predicts the rise and fall of nations and empires. It does specify that many of these falls have been and will be catastrophic. The God of the Bible also prophesies that people will experience terrible personal and national punishments for disobeying and sinning against Him. And yes, Armageddon is in the Bible.

But even Armageddon is part of a larger prophecy. When you read what the Bible actually says, you find that the greatest prophecy of all is the advance news of the soon-coming Kingdom of God! God will govern a civilization of peace, happiness, joy and prosperity for those who embrace a relationship with their Creator. Even the events surrounding Armageddon are corrective steps to save humanity from satanic sinfulness and self-destruction.

The Bible actually presents prophecy as an advance chronicle of a great plan God is working out. Although it involves discipline and punishment, the purpose of that plan is ultimately to bring humanity peace and joy so it can reach its fullest potential.

]]>David VejilMon, 23 Feb 2015 06:00:00 +0100http://www.thetrumpet.com/article/12387.33638.172.0/religion/bible/three-misconceptions-about-bible-prophecyWhat Can Sharks and Jellyfish Teach Us About Marijuana and President Obama?http://tracking.feedpress.it/link/4298/575759
The New Yorker’s January 27 profile on the U.S. president has kindled debate over many views Mr. Barack Obama expressed, but nothing in the piece grabbed more attention—both positive and negative—than his statements saying marijuana isn’t more dangerous than alcohol.

“As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life. I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol. … [I]t’s important for [legalization of marijuana] to go forward.”

The statements sparked delight across the nation among fraternity members, Rastafarians, fans of the Grateful Dead and Lil Wayne, and plenty of “regular Americans” too. But is smoking pot really no more dangerous than drinking alcohol?

Let’s consider the question by consulting three authorities.

Science

“It appears that President Obama is ignoring the science, but favoring the politics of pot,” said Dr. Eric Voth, Chair of the Institute on Global Drug Policy.

Science has produced an abundance of data showing that, when alcohol is abused (i.e. consumed in high doses), it becomes poisonous and can lead to a whole host of medical problems, including fatal overdoses.

But it is extremely rare for smokers of marijuana to suffer fatal overdoses.

That difference is emphasized ad nauseam by anyone “favoring the politics of pot,” as Dr. Voth says. It’s the leitmotif of marijuana propaganda. It is undeniable proof, pot advocates say, that smoking cannabis is less dangerous than drinking alcohol.

But the argument operates from a ridiculously slender definition of “dangerous.”

Since when, after all, is toxicity the only factor to consider in assessing the danger of a substance? Here are a few irrefutable findings from hard science about the dangers of pot smoking:

A 2001 study called “Neuropsychological performance in long-term cannabis users” proved that marijuana’s adverse impact on the brain can last days or even weeks after the high from the drug wears off. This means people who smoke it daily or even weekly are functioning at a suboptimal intellectual level at all times. They experience distorted perceptions, impaired coordination, difficulty in problem solving and trouble with learning/memory.

A 2012 Duke University study showed that IQ scores dropped for teenagers who started smoking marijuana and continued into adulthood.

Another study found that long-term pot smoking causes changes in the brain like those that occur after long-term use of harder drugs. Still another study proved that regularly smoking the drug significantly reduces an individual’s motivation and ambition. This is, in part, because of its effect on brain cells containing dopamine.

Research proves that cannabis use also often leads to addiction. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, about 9 percent of people who start smoking sporadically in their adult years become addicted to pot. This number jumps to 17 percent for users who begin smoking pot at younger ages. And it leaps to 25 to 50 percent for those who smoke daily.

Numerous studies associate marijuana with respiratory disease and mental illness, including schizophrenia. Studies also show chronic use to increase rates of depression, suicidal thinking and anxiety.

Research shows that although cannabis does not normally cause fatal overdoses, it can lead users to engage in all kinds of behaviors that cause death.

Consider this analogy:

Is it more dangerous to swim through a tank full of Irukandji jellyfish, or one containing some nurse sharks?

With the jellyfish, you’d be pretty much guaranteed to make it to the other side alive. But no matter how long you stayed in the water, and no matter how carefully you swam through it, you would definitely sustain numerous stings. The stings would cause serious physical and psychological symptoms.

Nurse sharks, on the other hand, are harmless and even love to be petted by people. If you swam through their tank cautiously and respectful of their power, you’d be guaranteed to make it across without any injuries. You would probably even have an enjoyable time with the beautiful, gentle giants, as many divers and snorklers do! But if you behaved irresponsibly by punching or otherwise abusing one of the sharks, it would likely attack and possibly kill you.

Drinking alcohol is like swimming through the tank of nurse sharks: It’s not dangerous if it’s done responsibly and cautiously. But smoking marijuana is like crossing that pool of Irukandji jellyfish: There’s absolutely no way to get through it without sustaining some pretty significant damage.

Law and Order

The federal Controlled Substances Act classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 substance. That means pot is one of “the most dangerous drugs of all the drug schedules with potentially severe psychological or physical dependence.”

It also means the government is obligated to enforce laws banning marijuana equally across the nation. Everyone in Washington and Colorado who smokes pot, or allows cannabis sales, is breaking federal law.

The White House website summarizes the official stance of the federal government: “The administration steadfastly opposes legalization of marijuana and other drugs because legalization would increase the availability and use of illicit drugs, and pose significant health and safety risks to all Americans, particularly young people.”

According to the website, “Confusing messages being presented by popular culture, media, proponents of ‘medical’ marijuana, and political campaigns to legalize all marijuana use perpetuate the false notion that marijuana is harmless. This significantly diminishes efforts to keep our young people drug free and hampers the struggle of those recovering from addiction.”

After his subversive comments on the topic, Mr. Obama’s name may need to be included on the list of messengers who confuse people by pushing those “false notions.”

The Ultimate Authority

Finally, let’s examine this question from the point of view of the Holy Bible, which is, after all, the Creator’s “instruction manual” for mankind.

The Bible does not mention marijuana, but many regular smokers of the drug claim that their habit is sanctioned by something God told Adam back in Eden: “Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat” (Genesis 1:29).

Cannabis smokers are especially fond of this King James rendering of the verse since it uses the word “herb”—a common modern nickname for marijuana.

One post on Marijuana.com clumsily ties this scripture to several others to create a long-winded and painfully contrived article whose purpose is to comfort Christian smokers “who find themselves struggling with the moral issues related to marijuana.”

A visitor to the website demonstrates the effects of the drug in a candid comment on that article: “Too long to read and I’m stoned .… So just tell me. Does [God] like it that I smoke?”

It’s a fair question, and can be answered in part by looking at the word “meat” in that scripture. It is translated from the Hebrew oklah, and very specifically means food. The verse is clearly talking about edible vegetation. This passage doesn’t give the green light to smoking marijuana any more than it sanctions ingesting poison ivy or hemlock.

Numerous studies prove that smoking anything is harmful to our lungs. God says people should glorify Him in our bodies: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price: So glorify God in your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Revised Standard Version).

The Bible also emphasizes, in Romans 13 and elsewhere, that God wants people to obey the laws of the nations they live in (as long as those laws don’t require breaking His law).

What does the Bible say about drinking alcohol? Unlike the subject of smoking marijuana, the Bible does discuss many specific aspects of drinking.

Scripture cautions sternly against excess drinking. It issues clear warnings about what the results of drunkenness can be in passages like Ephesians 5:18, Galatians 5:21, Isaiah 5:22, Proverbs 20:1 and Proverbs 23:21, 30-32. The Bible is adamant that people should not become inebriated by anything because it robs us of self-control and can lead to numerous problems.

But Scripture also reveals that—when used in moderation—alcohol is a gift from God! Psalm 104:15 lists it among blessings God gave to mankind. In 1 Timothy 5:23, the Apostle Paul says a little wine can be good for digestion; recent studies have proven that to be true. Alcohol is also listed as something that can bring greater enjoyment to celebratory situations (e.g. Deuteronomy 14:26; John 2). Old Testament prophecies about the joyous Millennium also sometimes use wine to symbolize the abundance of spiritual and physical blessings that will fill the Earth (Amos 9:13).

It’s true that many men and women have turned the blessing of alcohol into a curse, and many lives have been damaged or ended by abuse of the drink. But alcohol can be enjoyed moderately and correctly. Marijuana, however, can not be smoked in any way that is correct and healthy.

Science, the law of the U.S., and the ultimate authority of the Holy Bible agree that marijuana is more dangerous than alcohol. President Obama’s statements to the contrary were built on lopsided and discredited arguments.

“[E]ither he is seriously ill-informed about the issue or is completely ignoring warnings from his highly esteemed advisers,” the Drug-Free America Foundation wrote of the president’s remarks. It was “an irresponsible move for such a person in the most highly regarded position in this country.”

Whether the president likes it or not, he plays a key role in setting the moral tone of the United States. His decision to wade into this controversial topic and flippantly undermine U.S. law is hastening the nation’s slide into lawlessness and destabilization.

The most alarming part is that the destabilization he is accelerating may not be as accidental or cavalier as it may, at first glance, appear. To understand more, read America Under Attack.